Happy Birthday, Dad

This is a challenging time for me.

On a daily basis, I am dealing with a heart full of polar opposites: love and loss, fear and courage, resolve and timidity.



I am in a place I never expected to be at this point in my life.

I am sometimes frightened while curious, happy one moment and moved to tears the next.

Sometimes I feel like I am a mess.

Others, I feel as though everything has the chance to be made new again if only I can keep my wits about me and keep moving forward.

If I sit quietly.... I can remember your lessons, your wisdom and I can hear the faint whisper of your voice.

You taught me to look at everything in the world...to notice the details. I remember once, you bent to pick up a spiral shaped seed pod. It was delicate....needle sharp.... perfectly formed.
We talked about man's inventions of things mechanical....and the wonder of how nature had beat us to it. "We have only to see, to learn."

You taught me to walk quietly in places of great age and beauty. I learned this lesson in the Redwoods of Northern California, along the riverbanks of the Sierra Nevada, the deep canyons of Utah.

You taught me respect for intelligence, honesty, integrity. To question with an open mind.

(You also tried to teach me higher math.......but that lesson didn't take so well.)

The last thing you told me, was to always speak of you in the present tense. You knew you were dying but we did not confront this directly. You knew, that I knew.

"Instead of saying your dad "liked" biscuits.....say that your dad "likes" them....that way, I will always be there."

Sometimes, I actually utter the words; "My dad likes biscuits" -- and in the wondrous yet fleeting moment that is created; I, for just an instant , become again that young child that looked to her father for relief from the fears of the night. And in that moment....I am relieved.

Happy Birthday, Dad. The years we had together were a gift...the lessons, have lasted a life time.

Except for that higher math stuff.