Three Years Have Passed

Since I woke from a fitful night's sleep to a phone call saying Dad had died.

In those three years, I finished my master's degree, God brought me a best friend who I married, and in these many months when this blog has lain fallow, I've closed out my final year of teaching, Rundy and I have said goodbye to two wee babies before they could hear us, and we've said a tentative welcome to a third who even now stretches his limbs in a too-small space, tapping on the walls and stretching me out day by day.

And this morning we woke to the first snowfall. I think of Dad and his delight in going out when the leaves were rich and vibrant, or when skeletal branches were glazed over with ice, to wander the world and take photographs. He was no photographer, but when these fancies took him he certainly acted as though he was for the space of an hour or two. I think of him decking himself--and us--out in fluorescent orange, as many square inches of us as he could manage, during hunting season. I think of him with his chainsaw in the woods as we gathered firewood too late in the season, again. Yet we always stayed perfectly warm somehow. I stoically wore hats, gloves, and a winter coat to bed more than once, but I never minded.

The memories still come. They linger, but with each year that passes they taste a bit sweeter. The bitter edge of grief is dulling, and in its place is a quiet expectation, a hope, for the timelessness to come when all shall be well.

We still miss you, Dad.