April 21st, 2015 is easily the worst day of my life, the day my Dad passed away.

This is going to jump around a bit but I can’t help it, I am just writing down how I feel (as it’s the only way I truly know how to express myself and how I feel) with no planning beforehand so please bear with me as I get this out about the best man I’ve ever known.

He used to tell me that the measure of a man is how people see him when he’s no longer there to defend himself from the negative things they say, and how many people show up to see him once he’s passed on. If any of that is true then I know without a shadow of a doubt that my Dad was one of the greatest people to others that he was to my brother and I because of the massive outpouring of people who showed up to honor his memory.

I am a better person for having been Ted Hirn’s son, anyone who ever met him is a better person for having spent even a fleeting moment around him. He just had one of those infectious personalities that you either loved him or detested him, but I would venture to say there were a lot more of the former than the latter.

Everything I am today in a weird way is because of my Dad. I am successful in life because I have a job that I love, a beautiful wife and family around me, and because no matter what I tried to do, my Dad was always near the front of the line to tell me to keep pushing through that glass ceiling whenever I’d get down about it not going the way my perfectionist self wanted it to.

When I would drive home from whatever game I had done or whatever random thing I found myself part of, my Dad would always be the first person I’d call. I’ve talked to him about so much random stuff over the years that others would be annoyed by and not find amusement in….like for instance hot sauce or some random town I was in, but we always had a great conversation….about the stupidest things, that is what I will miss about our phone calls.

A number of years ago we got into it about what I realize now was him looking out for me, and didn’t speak for almost three months. Those three months were three of the worst months of my life. I made everyone around me miserable just because I (like him) were too bullheaded and “proud” to pick up the damn phone and just say…..anything. That whole thing is one of the biggest regrets of my entire life, and I can’t get that time back.

Over the course of the three days from the time he passed away (peacefully I’m told for those of you who don’t know), a handful of things happened: I heard some amazing stories I had never heard before from people who genuinely cared and loved him, I sobbed like a baby for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and likely more times as an adult and I told stories about him that seemed to put others at ease.

One of the “most Ted Hirn” things I can tell you here about him is that he was a HUGE prankster. There’s a story….or five that involve saran wrap that is too long to get into here that has always amused anyone who has heard it but I digress to this next one: the one great last Ted prank took place during the viewing when the night beforehand my step-sister found his pen holder. The story goes that apparently a lady got offended that after signing the guestbook that she had to return the pen into the butt shaped holder that it came with…..for the rest of us we laughed and laughed because it without a doubt would’ve put a smile on his face that even after he was gone to still be able to offend someone.

Dad’s motto about offending people was pretty simple (I’ll use the clean version): if they don’t have a sense of humor I don’t have time for them in my life.

There are so many things I want to say about my Dad here, but none of them can do justice to the amazingness that was Ted Mitchell Hirn. I’ve been wanting to put in print so to speak some of the many many words that I feel when I hear a song done incorrectly (he had a way of changing the words to things and making it so I can’t hear them correctly to this day), see a hot sauce I bet he won’t try (it worked ONCE, ONCE), or a movie too stupid that even he won’t watch it all the way through (never had that happen).

When you think of my Dad, think of the two little boys he left behind that to this day want nothing more than to be half the man that he was and tried to teach them to be, to his wife Donna who loved and took care of him for over 20 years and was by his side through good and bad (and trust me, I myself brought them plenty of bad at times, something I’m still sorry to this day for), and remember how much he loved life and could always bring a smile to your face, even when you least thought it was possible.

I love you Dad, thank you for everything you’ve given me in my life and will continue to give me as you look down on us from above, my hope in life is that no matter what I ever do that I make you proud. I’ll even let you say “I heard you admit I was right” about the things I said at your viewing…..and it’ll be ok because you being right isn’t such a bad thing after all I’m learning.