This week of February was always handy for remembering to send cards or do phone calls to my parents. I knew the 5th and the 8th marked their anniversary and Mom’s birthday (often I’d get them switched but close enough is always good enough by parents like mine). Yes, the 5th came, and as my […]
Dear Mom and Dad, where ever you are, I know you cannot send letters any more, but trust you know what’s in mine. Maybe you can read blogs? These August 27s keep rolling by, extending the time, though not fading the memories of when you were on this earth. Seventeen, Dad, and seven years, Mom, […]
My Dad’s domain as the green grass lawn of our suburban Baltimore home. It was so much, that when he got his personal email address it started with “lawnman”. He was fanatic at watering, seeding, fertilizing, and hand pulling dandelions. In early memories there was some kind of gas powered lawn mower he used that […]
A Levine family thing, well mine, was when asked what I wanted for a gift. Cleverly I strategized a means to get many gifts; I would request “A big box full of a whole bunch of little toys.” My parents always obliged. The calendar and later in the day my older system reminded me that […]
The do it every year. There are three adjacent houses in Strawberry, Arizona, where Wingfield Way turns into Tonto Rim Drive and the north edge of town folds into the forest. Each Christmas, whomever lives there, sets up a huge display of lights. Of course it’s not novel, it happens everywhere. And it’s not anywhere […]
My calendar reminders were set; it was my memory that somehow put August 27 into tomorrow. My sister’s text message corrected the off by one error. Today marks the same calendar date that my Dad passed away, 16 years ago, and my mom went, ten years later. If you take a mathematical approach (and stop […]
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 […]
Cancer took Dad in August 2001. I don’t want to do the arithmetic on how long ago that was. Yet I did. Where is that point of the trailing off of grief and the acceptance of the norm where your parent is gone? It’s not defined at all I think of him when the calendar […]
Dear Mom and Dad, I knew August 27 was looming. It was not going to not get here. While walking the dog his morning I looked at the ground. And there it was. This blog post is being written on the 26th, scheduled to publish on the 27th, because I will be off camping in […]
My Dad spent a lot of time in the yard. Pushing the lawnmower. Raking leaves. Trimming the forsythia bushes. I want to say I pondered him doing that and wondered what he thought about spending all those hours out there, but maybe that is more hindsight memory. But he definitely found his own rewards from […]
