Wherever I go, there you are

en years on, it’s tempting to think about all he’s missed:

• My marriage
• My first book
• The first grandchild (his third)
• The second grandchild (his fifth)

Those are just the biggies. Maybe even more significant are the smaller events. The birthdays, the holidays, the family vacations. Times when a conversation sparks sitting side by side on a dock, feet dangling in the water. Or around a campfire. Or times like last summer, when my sister-in-law and I went out to lunch during our annual family reunion vacation. We ate outside on a perfect summer day, and then I went back inside the restaurant to get a cookie.

Entering, the music gave me pause first. John Denver. Dad’s favorite. I don’t remember which song, but it happens a few times a year and always feels like a gift. Then as I paid for the cookie, the second sign. My change included a bicentennial quarter, one of the coins he kept. He wasn’t a coin collector – rather, he saved everyday coins. Pennies, silver dollars and bicentennials in particular.

Like hearing John Denver on the Muzak, I get one of those quarters a few times a year, too. But this was the first time both had occurred together. Awed, I returned outside and told Jeni.

Ten years on, it is tempting to think of all he’s missed. Yet I believe that truly, he’s seen it all, and more. John Denver says it better in Calypso:

…in search of the answers of questions unknown
To be part of the movement and part of the growing,
part of beginning to understand.

Maybe, ten years on, I am beginning to understand. That I will still miss him, always. But I can keep on growing, and we’ll catch up on all of it side by side someday.

Drop cap — which would suit woodworker Dad to the proverbial “T” – courtesy of Daily Drop Cap.