My father weighs heavy on my heart this time of year. He would have turned 85 years old this week, except he died suddenly the day after Thanksgiving in 1997 at the tender age of 68. And last week, as I stood in Nashville’s Johnny Cash Museum attending a creative conference, I thought how much Daddy would love to be there. Daddy loved country music. The voices of Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride, and Eddy Arnold filled Daddy’s car (the chorus of Arnold’s “Singing His Cattle Call” will forever be etched in my memory) and I can remember Daddy’s worn out 8-track tape of Willie Nelson’s “Red Headed Stranger,” which he played over and over singing “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.”