Father's Day Reflections: Jessika Ming of KCAL9 (Executive Producer)

This week, someone asked me about Father's Day gifts and I replied, "I don't have a father anymore." Sometimes the blunt words just come out of my mouth and every time I'm surprised by their truth. In the nearly three years since my dad's sudden death I have been filled alternately with deep sorrow and joyful memories. And on the day we celebrate all the fathers of the world, I experience that roller coaster of emotions all daughters must feel when their daddies are gone.

For the last several years of my father's life, our small family spent Father's Day on the road. We would head to New Mexico for the World Championships of Cowboy Action Shooting. For those of you who don't know, it's a shooting discipline that incorporates the guns and attire of the late 1800's... and in the world of competitive shooting my dad was a Rock Star. He was a five-time World Champion and is in the Single Action Shooting Society Hall of Fame. He spent years honing his skills to become a shooting machine... and there is doubt that anyone will ever win the title five years straight as he did in the mid- 90's. There was a point back then when I didn't even worry about whether he would win a competition, because he was so focused. But one Sunday morning I got a phone call, and everything changed. My dad had been in an ATV accident, and bones in his left arm were crushed. It was two weeks before the World Championships, so his series of wins was unequivocally over. My father underwent surgery to insert a titanium bone, and began a very long process of intense physical therapy. He hated swimming, yet he went in the pool every day to go above and beyond what his recovery required. He was an inspiration, and his doctor called him a "miracle" case. And while he never again won the title of World Champion, he still found ways to improve his game and other wins kept coming.

Another phone call changed everything in 2008. It was a call I made as I frantically tried to figure out why my father hadn't arrived to pick me up. A paramedic answered the phone and told me, "it doesn't look good." My dad had dropped me off at a nail salon while he went hiking in Peters Canyon, where he died of a massive heart attack. At the time, I was just days out of surgery for an achilles tendon tear and I had been looking forward to spending time rehabbing with my dad as a coach. He had promised he would take me to the shooting range (by this time I had become a successful competitor) and make sure I would work out in the pool. I didn't know how my mother and I were going to go on without his strong presence and I definitely didn't know how I was supposed to give my recovery the focus it needed. But, as his friends started stopping by the house, I was reminded of all the things that my dad had accomplished without one word of complaint. They were the reasons so many people looked up to him and went to him for advice, the reasons why people still write about the examples of sportsmanship he set on the shooting range. So, with my dad's voice in my head, I decided to attack my own physical therapy. Just like him, I even became the medical case that surprised my doctor.

I could go on and on about my dad's professional achievements as well, or talk about the time he was a reserve police officer and rolled up to my first high school dance in a police vehicle. I could also talk about the times his tough love approach clashed with my teenage hormones... but, I'll stop here. I wanted to share just a little bit of how my dad still inspires me on Father's Day and every other day of the year.