father's day

i think i'm hitting the self-pity streak.  trying not to.  i feel sad. when i went to bed last night, i just said to myself, "feel however you feel tomorrow. you don't have to be sad. just be".  but i woke up with a literally heavy heart.  i went down to my address book, where i have a list of all the phone #'s my parent's had during my life.  plainview, florida, assisted living, hospitals,  nursing home.  i went through the numbers and mentally re-visited the phone calls i made to those numbers.  since i moved out of their home when i was 17, it was way more about phone calls than visits, tho there were plenty of them.

father's day. a day to honor father's.  my father was honorable. funny, obnoxious, sarcastic, very smart, difficult, in love with my mother, sad, happy........

my partner's favorite memory of my father was when she came to plainview with me for the first time.  i guess i was sleeping, and he invited her to take a walk to get the newspaper, which is a good mile away.  she was very scared - what would they talk about?!  but of course she said yes.  and she had a great time.  my father was a good conversationalist, able to talk about any number of topics, as kitty is. and they talked all the way there and back.  she was really surprised.  she loved him from then on, and i think it was mutual.

happy father's day, dad.