On the First Anniversary of Dad's Passing

1
Scraping Ice

We had our first frost recently over a weekend when my son Charlie was staying with me. I helped him scrape his windshield as our cars were heating up. I would soon go one way and he would go the other; me to work, him to school.

He sat inside while I scraped; with each pass of the scraper I revealed a little more of his face.

I remember as a child sitting in the car and watching my dad's face gradually appear as his quick arms removed swaths of ice. This was a frequent event, one you probably also experienced if you live in a northern climate.

My dad is gone now. He died one year ago today.

I suspect Charlie will one day be scraping the ice off his car and relive the same memory.

[2012-10-29]

 

2
Tarnished Tinsel

I was listening to Christmas music on Pandora recently and a smiling Johnny Mathis induced a sudden twinge of sadness for holiday cheer past. All the smiles and laughter then were certainly as real as ours today, but they have an element of pumpkin pie left in the fridge too long, or old tinsel oxidized with age.

(When I was a child, very old tinsel would tarnish; some was made with silver before the war years. The one piece of tinsel I remember being tarnished may have been from my parents' childhood.)

[2012-11-21]

 

3
Say something else in that ear.

"Once you see something, it's hard to unsee it. That's not just true of things like a dog getting hit by a car or a graceful woman stumbling; it's also true of insight, and why anger usually increases with further consideration, as does love and tolerance and hate and displeasure. "
--Clarence 0ddbody

[2012-11-24]

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