When I started this blog I committed to writing a post once a week. It has never slipped my mind.
Until this week. I totally forgot to write. It wasn't that I couldn't think of something to write. It was that I didn't even remember to write.
When I did think of it, I had the same feeling as remembering an appointment a half hour after it was supposed to happen. I was shocked by my own absent-mindedness.
It was Father's Day weekend and I had forgotten that I wanted to write about my dad.
I was lucky to have a great dad. I was unlucky to have lost him at 18.
It has been a long time since I have seen him. The decades since his sudden death have smoothed some of the edges of my grief. Thinking about him no longer creates an instant constriction of my heart and throat, now it is more of an eye watering ache.
I might have forgotten the task of writing, but thinking of dad never slips my mind.
I have a hand full of jewel-like memories that never fade.
Swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, my kid arms wrapped around his neck while we rode waves into the beach. Playing on his office floor, listening to him "talk business" on the phone. Visiting the Museum of Natural History in New York City with him and running in the whale room. Sitting on his shoulders watching the Philadelphia Mummer's Parade. Sailing around Townsends Inlet in his tiny sail boat, The Blue Baron. Listening to him answer the house phone and chat with my friends as if they had called for him.
And then, there was his ridiculous sense of humor.
He went to great lengths when it was time to be silly.
I was lucky to have a great dad.
Categories: Family, Writing | Tags: #dadsday, #fathersday, Father's Day, Jim Borden, remembering | Permalink.
Sara, I am crying !! This is just lovely. I was one of those friends that called and ended up talking to Jim. What a hoot. He was a great man. I am privileged to have known him.
Oh Angel, I'm so happy you have those memories too!