We Visited Dad Today.

Mom and I got together to celebrate my first half-day of work today. Went to the antique store and the thrift store. Had lunch at the place I once found myself surprised to run into TEO and her luminescent, amazing family (SUCH good gyros). Went to see dad.

She took me where I had not ventured in many, many years; to the newly redesigned steampunk-style building where he worked for so many years. We visited him, and she obessively read every new stone, marked since she had last been there. In dad's memorial garden, he was one of the first residents. I held my mom and wept before his plaque. My tears fell on her hand, and she wiped them away, half-smiling.

We saw a little lizard, a bronzed creature looking burnished against the memorial stones. She was gorgeous, perfect; asymmetrical - clinging to the wall horizontally, her right legs reaching up, holding on; her left legs close to the body, bracing her hold ...

We sat and looked at all the windows in the chapel. It is such a spare, beautiful chapel; and the light was literally dazzling. Marvelous.

"We didn't know each other at all; but it was so right."

She recited a dirty limerick he had told her. "I don't think I've ever told you that before." Nope. She hadn't.

Even dad's style of dirty humor was kind of literary. G-d love him. There was a man from Boston ...

"We met in August, and by the second and third date we were talking about marriage."

I'd always known this. (Mom had a dragon, after all ...) But today I thought to ask, "What did y'all say? Were you talking *about* marriage - as a concept? - or was it, 'boy I think I kind of dig you' - YOU talking about marrying EACH OTHER ... ?"

"Oh, it was US. It was 'I think we're done', it was 'this is *it*' ..."

Gawd. And I bet it was, too. Dad was IN LOVE with my mother. Slam, total, absolute IN LOVE with her, irrevocable, always, and to the day he died. He found her vivacious, engaging, incredibly beautiful. They were constantly necking when my brother and I were kids. Shoot, it never stopped. He would kiss her all the time. He never stopped; and she never stopped trying to attract him, either. She was dressing up for him literally until the day he died. Which he did, lying in a hospital bed, spooned against her.

He *wanted* her, singularly, uniquely - indelibly. Few people ever enjoy that kind of love from anyone. And dad was utterly open to my mom. They had hard times, they were human. But he never, ever, ever would have let her go.

I think this is why so many people are so judgemental about the man I chose to love. *Le sigh*


My mom and dad met in August. They were married in December.

My mom doesn't wait two years for anyone ... so she didn't wait. And he finished grad school a married man.



We drove his car. We felt the wind.

She's probably going to sell that car. She's been saying so for years ...

We visited dad today.

It was an absolutely beautiful day.