Growing up, Dad lived a strange life. Where most fathers worked a 8-5 schedule and came home for dinner, my experience with my father was on another level. He was gone 50 weekends of the year. He traveled internationally, often to hostile environments, and was gone for weeks without communication. Needless to say, having Terry Law as a father was unique.
Was he gone most of my childhood and teenage years? Yes he was. Did he regret it when he got older? Yes he did. Yet, Dad did his best to engage with us when he returned home. He was a bit like a U.S. service member going away to war and then returning and struggling to reacclimatize to “normal” family life. Dad would be running from the KGB one weekend, and then be home watching Hee-Haw with us just days later. Talk about culture shock.
His returning home from the airport was always a joyous occasion. He was like Santa Claus, surprising us by opening the front door and declaring, “What’s going on around here?”. Having him home meant so much to us, simply because he was gone so often.
I fondly remember him coming home, sitting at the piano, and start pounding out one of his favorite songs – Birddog, by The Everly Brothers. We would all begin dancing around the piano and start singing along with him. I thought you would enjoy hearing him play this song for my girls when they were younger.