My Dad with His Guitar

My Dad with His Guitar, originally uploaded by confections.

My youngest sister sent this photo to me yesterday. It is one that I had never seen, possibly from my uncle's estate originally, and dates to the mid- to late-1940's.

She included the following anonymous quotation along with the picture:

"My father's guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever."

Missing you still, Daddy, and honoring your memory.

My Dad and My Sister

My Dad and My Sister, originally uploaded by confections.

Remembering my Dad this week.... I love this photo that my Mom took of my Dad and my sister sharing a joyful moment in the summer of 1957.

Daddy Reading at the Cabin

Daddy Reading at the Cabin, originally uploaded by confections.

I lost my father to an accident seventeen years ago today. In the aftermath of his loss, an elderly friend of mine, a poet who had only known my Dad through my sister and me, wrote a moving tribute to him. I'm including it here; it was written by my late friend, Mary Ellen Gallagher (Drumdaughter), whom I sorely miss as well.

♥

On the last full day of his life
he climbed a tree.
What, you ask, was a seventy-four
year old man doing
climbing a tree?

Perhaps the bright autumn woods
made him feel a boy again
and he longed to be held in leafy arms,
gaze once more on his beloved fields,
and touch the wild September sky.

In numinous response to leaves
and sun and apple-scented air
he moved old aching bones up to the tree top
and started his journey away from
minds which look askance at old men in trees.

I could only wish to climb a tree
on the last full day of my life.

My Dad with My Brother Gary, circa 1948

My Dad with My Brother Gary, circa 1948, originally uploaded by confections.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

Sunflower Joy

Sunflower, originally uploaded by confections.

The Dog Days of Summer are here, although it has been quite comfortable here in Southern California lately. Nothing says summer to me in such a playful way as a riotous sunflower bloom.

This one was part of a thickly planted patch in a local neighborhood that I spied while driving by. I could not resist stopping and documenting its beauty. If you look closely you can see a few bees enjoying its nectar.

During the last summer of my Dad's life (1991), he grew a spectacular sunflower in his garden in Pennsylvania which was easily twice the diameter of the center of this bloom (perhaps 12 inches to this one's 6). We had given him the seeds in the spring and he nurtured his prize with his secret fertilizer--gray water from the kitchen dishpan.

A few days after his untimely accidental death that September, we harvested the sunflower and kept the seeds. My sister fashioned a wire-wrapped charm bracelet for me that included one of the seeds.

My father reveled in nature and it is poignant to me that this last triumph in his garden yielded hollow seed-shells. That sunflower would not be replicated--an irony not lost on his children and family, who still feel his loss, but are uplifted and reminded of him when a sunflower shows its joyous face.