Opinion: Big Dink stories help keep my father ‘alive’

  • This photo—taken in December 1997—was my dad’s last Christmas with us. Until our mother died in 2014, the Leon Loard portraits, in the background, of sisters Sandy and Sheila (pictured) and me always hung side by side. Today the portraits are in each of our homes. (Photo submitted by NeSmith)
    This photo—taken in December 1997—was my dad’s last Christmas with us. Until our mother died in 2014, the Leon Loard portraits, in the background, of sisters Sandy and Sheila (pictured) and me always hung side by side. Today the portraits are in each of our homes. (Photo submitted by NeSmith)

    Sunday is Father’s Day.

    Oh, I wish mine were still here so that I could tell him how much I loved him. Even though he died in 1998, Big Dink’s DNA is at work inside me. And so many stories keep him “al…