Father's Day

my Christmas Onion

It's Father's Day today, and I've done a bang-up job of ignoring the fact.

I got up early this morning, before it got hot, and spent a few hours in the garage, trying to make progress on getting the rest of it organized. I came in, ate lunch, took a nap and cleaned the kitchen and bathroom - such a good little do-bee.

But after dinner, it got a little harder to pretend there wasn't a hole in my world. Why after dinner? Perhaps it was the cold beer I treated myself to after finishing my work for the day. I'm not much of a beer drinker, but must admit they go down easy when I've been working all day in the heat.

I sat there looking at my beer, and my heart and mind went back to all the times I remember Dad doing the same thing. He worked hard, and enjoyed a cold beer at the end of a hot day. I remember him working around the house almost every weekend. He worked, but rarely did he finish a project 100% of the way. He'd get almost done with the job, then lose interest. Something else would come along to claim his attention and his time, and he'd never get back to putting up that last piece of trim. Nor, near as I could tell, did it ever bother him that the trim piece wasn't in place. (It did me - now I'm the one in control of finishing the projects, they pretty much always get all the way done.)

The hole he left in my life when he died in 1994 at age 69 is subtler than the one left when Mom died. Partly because I was an adult by then, partly because I didn't get to see him often anyways, and it was easier for my psyche to pretend he was still out there in Arizona, and would be coming through any day now on his annual trip home.

It's been a long time since he got around to making the trip, though, and I miss him. I miss his crooked smile and the sound of his voice. I miss knowing he's out there if I really need him. I miss the letters he used to write me, letters about nothing really, just a way to stay in touch.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. I hope, where ever you are, you have a workshop full of good quality tools. I hope the blades are sharp and and the workshop is full of fun projects for you to putter around with, even if you never do manage to finish a one. I love you....