Father's Day

17 years ago I wrote something about my father in a summit register on top of Wheeler peak in Nevada. He had passed away a few months earlier ending a rough journey with multiple myloma. He was 66, only three years older than my wife is now. Since it's Father's Day, Everyone is posting pictures of their fathers on Facebook with best wishes, expressions of love, or memorials of them in their absence.  As I sit on a balcony in Antibes, a week in to a trip that I will be struggling to find words to describe for some time to come, I am a bit astonished and a bit ashamed that I don't have a picture of him to post and I can't remember what I wrote on that mountain. All I can remember; all I can ever remember, is that he died with his mind intact, so his greatest fear never came true. But he died before he saw Maddie grow into the beautiful woman she is. He died before Carolyn and I got married, before he saw me teach a college class. And he died before I ever figured out how to tell him I loved him. I miss him so much. I'm so sorry he's not here. 

Last night I talked with the wife of a friend of Chris and Anne. We were staying at their house. Her mother had passed away a few months earlier. we both understood that the end of their lives was a release from illness but there's a persistent sadness in going on without the approving eye of a parent.

As we sat there missing our parents, fireworks started down the valley celebrating the feast of St.Jean.  I suppose Saint Jean didn't mind that we borrowed them to celebrate our parents who were no longer here to see them.