Mar 17 2011
Eighty
Rain, hail, and thunder woke me up early this morning. I lay there in the darkness and remembered that it’s Dad’s birthday. He would have been 80 today.
As I made coffee, the antique Wedgwood I inherited from him looked on calmly, as it has watched generations of our family for 120 years. My father’s cookbooks are on the shelf, as well as the books he authored, and a picture of him as a nine year old boy, holding a gun and laughing gleefully with his friend Brian, who was his friend his entire life and his best man when he married my mother, more than half a century ago.
If my wallet were ever stolen, the only thing I would really lament losing is the little note from Dad which reads “See you, kid-o”. When we were in Russia in 1991, he was moved to tears when his wallet was stolen*, because it contained a little prayer his mother had written out for him and given to him when he first went to college. Sentiment – and carrying sentimental things in our wallets – runs in the family.
When I look in the mirror, I don’t see him. I don’t look particularly like either of my parents, though I am the only one who got Mom’s green eyes. Megan has Dad’s nose and Jonathan his blue, blue eyes. I think my hands look like Dad’s and his mother’s, though. And I have his love of travel and cooking.
I worked for twelve hours today, which I think he would have liked. He always worked hard, and loved his work. He told me more than once that he would have done it for free. And he left the world a better place than he found it, which is perhaps all any of us can wish for. Though I wish he was still with us to celebrate his 80th birthday.
Dad, I will always love you and always miss you. And though I should be celebrating the day my best friend was born, I can’t help but mourn the loss of him. As I write, the rain and hail have started again, heavier than ever, and darkness has fallen once again.
*His money and credit cards were not in the wallet, undoubtedly to the thief’s disappointment.