12 Years

I was a bit of a mess yesterday. I usually am a bit off the last week of October, as memories of my dad and last few days of his life blossom up in the forefront of my mind. This year though, his absence feels sharper and it turned my (already not so organized) thoughts into chaos. I have a few notions as to why this is so, but want that picture to become clearer to me before I speak of it to anyone else. I know I'm not alone in this. Everyone who's lost some one they loves, lives the rest of their life inside a tidal wave of grief. It ebbs, then returns, then ebbs again. It's a brutal form of beauty, but so is the rest of life, really.

Yesterday was not pleasant; it was tidal wave masquerading as a tsunami. But today the salt and sting of it's waters ebbed and I felt peace. I hiked between gold sunbeams and ancient trees; I heard the wind singing it's symphony; saw fall leaves engaging in their favorite dance. I turned 'round a corner an came face to face with a Barred Owl; I leaned back on my heels, soaking up it's silent mystery, it's unparalleled elegance. Marveled at how lucky I was to have seen it, that it let me see it. Today I walked through the forest and felt thankful. I know that would have made my dad happy.

He's been gone for 12 years now. This, below, is not really a poem, not really an essay. Just a collection of a few random reminiscences, mostly good ones. 12 years is a long time, but I will always remember him. 

~*~

Some days the memories just slam into you

A runaway train refusing to stop…

Learning a David’s screwdriver, isn’t a real thing

Just something made up because it’d be funny

A sci-fi trade paperback, a surprise gift before a camp trip

The handing over of a thin silver, washer with a random

awe filled comment on it’s beauty, simplicity

A hand built bed, and swing set and dog sled

Sharing the biggest cinnamon roll I’ve ever seen

Late summer and two weeks spent living off of Pasta-roni and foosball and the movie Rat Race

The explanations of math problems, which I promptly forgot

The examples of knots that now evade me

The discussion of truck types, surprisingly still remembered

Watching 2 Fast 2 Furious when I turned 16, a mad search through the theater isles

For a rolling tube of chapstick

Christmas morning – cheese mice – a look of utter disbelief

A golf game when I was 6 and the golf cart I was allowed to drive

And years later when we argued over the stick shift I didn’t want to drive

Giving gallons of whole milk as a gift, because he was impossible to shop for

Tasting cheesy eggs for the first time on an early childhood fishing trip

Lattes from Blondies, at least one a day, buying me one if I'd drive to get his

5 lb bag upon 5 lb bag of Good & Plenty and Peanut M&M’s

Observing, in our Park City garage, a deer being skinned

It’s small antlers resting on my desk for years after

Listening crazy story of how, on a different trip, years and years before

The truck burst into flames and setting the Wyoming hillside ablaze

Dip netting in the frigid waters of the Kenai,
the excitement over blizzards at the Soldotna Dairy Queen
the day he walked into a Taco Bell and ordered a Frosty, and the look on the poor girls face as she hesitantly suggested he was in the wrong restaurant

The many, many toy construction vehicles that lined the desk of each office

And the even more plentiful pictures of us that filled those same spaces
hearing someone say they never saw someone with so many pictures of their kinds in their office

Building a model of the Pekin drawbridge out of popsicle sticks for a school project, he was definitely more excited about that than I was

The mention, while hiking through the sweltering Arizona desert,  

that after a winter spent working on the frozen iron of the new Pekin bridge,

he would never complain of heat again…

…A few train tracks of memories, so many thousands more…

I can still hear his voice, if I think really hard

I still listen for the shriek of his summoning whistle

His nicknames for me are stitched into the fabric of my heart

The words ‘Follow Your Bliss’ echo through my soul.

I miss you dad. So much. i love you.

~*~*~