Aug 18 2009
What Would Dad Do?
Dad and his faithful friend Jesse* on Wimbledon Common.
I think of my Dad pretty much every day, but today, the anniversary of his death, I think of him a little more than usual, and maybe a little differently.
Now with the Green Acres Experiment greenlit, I’m second-guessing myself and wondering if I’ve made the right decision. When Dad was alive, I’d ask him for advice, and he was always right. Always. Whether it was a personal matter or a professional one, he knew what to do. Whereas I am the world’s oldest teenager and never know what to do.
Maybe I should be like George in that “Seinfeld” episode where he does the opposite of his instincts and everything starts going great for him.
The thing is, moving to the country is doing the opposite for me. I’ve always been a city girl, despite the fact that my sibs and I grew up on five bucolic acres and our nearest neighbors were farmers. Being somewhere without a Sephora or taxis kind of fills me with horror. But it makes financial sense, and I’ll have family and friends to support me in my new, muddy life.
The way things have been falling into place kind of makes me think that it’s meant to be. Dad didn’t believe in an afterlife, but maybe he was wrong for once and this is his way of telling me I’ve finally made a good decision on my own.
*In death, they were not divided: both Jesse’s and Dad’s ashes were scattered under a certain tree very near where this picture was taken. I said a final good-bye there after I cleared Dad’s things out of the house he and Margaret had shared during their happy years together.