Fatherless Father’s days, round 16. Of course I do have a father, I just can’t call him on the phone as I last did in 2011.
I can still write, and think, and remember.
I continue to come across small things of his that I have in my home, or my tool shed. Those two measuring devices, I believe are called “scales” and were things he used in his profession of construction cost estimating, then the tools of architectural drafting. They help to draw things to accurate scale.
Like time? I remember using them in 6th or 7th grade when I took a drafting class. Sorry Dad, I was not very good at it.
The photo is one maybe my Mom or sister sent of Dad building a brick pad outside their patio door. He has a big smile on.
Dad was always happy outside, doing things in the yard.
Many of my memory images of Dad was all the time he spent in the yard, landscaping or doing projects. For some reason I imagine myself standing at the second floor window watching him; in that space, working on something outside, he seemed most at ease in the world.
I wondered if I wondered what he was thinking about.
I wonder that as I spend time in my own yard, landscaping and doing projects, a place and thing I feel most at ease with in the world.
That thing when you realize how much you are like your parents, and rather than cringing as a teen, you can say that in love and honor.
Two more time measured memories, from 1976, not only the US Bicentennial, but the year of my Bar Mitzvah. This was a big deal, socially, financially, for my parents to through a big party. Look at those tuxes.
Look at us, so alike,
A less formal photo of me and Dad, the day after the big party. I think there was another event, a formal breakfast. I am fairly sure my Dad was hung over; he was not much of a drinker, but he had plenty that night before.
I can precisely measure the time since but I can also measure the strength of those memories of Dad. He did not say much and there’s many more conversations I wish we had, but his love?
Beyond any scale of measure.
