Within Close Range - Albert

Albert's scared the shit out of countless people over the years.

Despite this (or rather because of it), he's been an integral part of the family since Mom brought him home from a golf trip to Pebble Beach, California in the mid-seventies.

Ever since then, Albert's just hung around. 

Year, after year, after year... after year.

He's of average height,  a gray-haired gentleman, with a full beard - both of which hint of their ginger youth. 

He's originally from London, but he’s classic Scottish from the top of his thick, tousled hair to his argyle socks.

Always in Glen Plaid and corduroy.

In the pocket of his kinsmen’s plaid, for as long as we’ve known him, Albert’s always carried his pipe. In the same pocket, he used to keep a battered, old tin of tobacco - Prince Albert to be precise, the very man he was named after - until some sibling of mine borrowed the rusty, bright red tin (likely to store their weed) and never returned it to the old man.  

Albert never said a word. 

But that didn’t surprise any of us.

Because that is Albert.

Always in the background.

Still and silent.

Growing up with Albert around, we quickly learned two things: he was never where you thought he was, yet he was always somewhere.

You might find him sitting in the sun porch staring out at the lake, or lying beneath the covers in one of the boy’s twin beds. He might be in the front seat of a car one morning, or on one of the chaises, lounging under the stars, one night.

His familiar, but frightening figure, silhouetted in the shadows of the darkened house, frequently made my heart skip a beat as I snuck to the kitchen for a midnight snack, shuffled to bed after a midnight movie, or through the house after curfew.

But Albert never tattled.

It simply wasn’t him.

Most people never really knew who Albert was:  an uncle, a grandfather, an unsocial grump... a corpse?

He was our quiet sentry. 

His dark, squinted eyes ever-fixed on the room. 

Out the window. 

On you.

Never blinking.

As we speak, he’s probably sitting in the basement of Mia’s house, where he continues to startle guests just looking to use the exercise equipment.

A bit unnerving, our Albert, but dependably docile… and pliable.

Even after years of family and friends forcing him into the most unflattering positions.

For the amusement of others. 

Creepy?

Maybe.

But it's what we've been doing to Albert for forty-plus years.

And he's entertained us endlessly.

Besides, who knows where he might have ended up had Mom not told the manager of the Pebble Beach Pro Shop she loved him and wanted to take him home.

Surely he's been worth the $200 Dad paid for him… 

... and the battle of wills which likely took place between Mom and Dad before the shopkeeper lifted Albert out of the display window, packed him in a box, and shipped him off.

Within Close Range: Ice Cream and Convertibles

Dad loved convertibles.

And ice cream.

But who could blame him?

The thought of Baskin-Robbins’ thirty-one flavors made me giddy.

How many summer nights did I listen for to him call, “Who wants ice cream?” 

And when he did…

I was the first to the car, just behind Dad (who was secretly more excited than anyone). I'd quickly take possession of the coveted front seat when Mom chose a quiet hour alone over a waffle cone - which was most often.

While waiting for the others, Dad would push a button on the dashboard and I'd follow the fabric wall of black as it rolled behind me and out of sight, revealing the slowly fading daylight and cloudless, summer sky.

With everyone finally on board, off we’d go, down Shoreacres Road, as the last of the day’s golfers drifted down the final, shadowed fairway, toward the old clubhouse at the edge of the lake.

As we rolled along at country club speed, I’d look to the trees, heavy with green and I’d suck in the waning day and the humid, cool lake air, until we moved away from the lake and the air became the strong, sweet aroma of fresh cut grass and wild, roadside onions.

Once on Sheridan Road, Dad pressed on the gas pedal and summer was soon whizzing past, behind a veil of windblown hair, which I continuously plucked from my inescapable grin. 

It was a straight shot to Lake Forest from here.

Twenty minutes to ice cream, to the Baskin-Robbins in an old, brick building which stood at the corner of Deerpath Road and Bank Lane, just past the theatre where standing in line with Chris and her boyfriend, Rick, (to see a movie I can’t remember and likely shouldn’t have been seeing) I caught a brief glimpse of a naked man - a streaker - running past the crowd, before Chris cupped her hands over my eyes and Rick laughed louder than anyone.

Brightly illuminated by the two big windows on either side of its corner door, I'd look for the ice cream shop as soon as we turned onto Deerpath to see if there were a lot of people in line making their own difficult flavor decisions.

I liked it when it was crowded.

It gave me more time to stroll up and down the glass-walled freezer cabinets, inspecting gallon after gallon of colorful, ice-cold goodness.

Bubble Gum was an early favorite, until what I first saw as the added benefit of something left to chew when the ice cream was gone, turned out to be consistently flavorless morsels of rubber.

Hardly worth missing out on something chocolaty.

Rocky Road was almost irresistible, but often greedy for more, I’d order the Banana Royale, with its two scoops of vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, chopped nuts, whipped cream and a Maraschino cherry on the very, very top. 

I never ate the bright red cherry which stained the peak of the whipped cream pile, but it reminded me of Uncle Louie and his big Oldsmobile, with its massive back window filled with baseball caps and his massive trunk filled with boxes and bottles, including the largest jar of Maraschino cherries I’d ever seen - I've yet to see its equal - which stood unopened in our kitchen cupboard for ages.

I liked thinking about Uncle Louie.

I also liked stuffing myself with Banana Royale.

Dad teased that I must have had a hollow leg, since my stomach couldn’t possibly fit an entire sundae. But somehow I managed.

Everyone had their favorite flavor and everyone's choices were as different as their personalities. Chris loved chocolate chip mint. Jim: butter pecan and pralines n' cream. Mia liked rainbow sherbet, but mostly because it coated her tongue and hardly-seen-a-toothbrush-all-summer teeth, which she liked to stare at it in the side view mirror as we passed beneath the just lit street lamps on our way home. Being the youngest, Mark took his ice cream cues from each of us, but usually ended up with more of the thirty-one flavors running down his chin and tiny hands than in his stomach.

Loath to re-admit offspring with fast melting ice cream into his always pristine car, Dad would lead what he called his "troop" toward Market Square where we'd admire the stores from a drippy distance. Even with a big bowl of ice cream in both hands, I'd peer through the large windows of Marshall Fields and think about how much I'd love to have some Frango Mints, which I could see stacked high atop their very own display table at the entrance of the old department store.

I’d scan the dimmed display cabinets and shiny glass countertops and think about the lady in the first floor makeup department who looked as if she'd been there since the store first opened in 1928. 

But it wasn't her age that fascinated me.

She fascinated me. 

She always wore black. 

Always in a dress, or a skirt and blouse. 

That perfectly matched her jet-black bob. 

Which was accentuated with a precisely penciled-in, black as pitch, widow's peak.

A steadfast fancy from her flapper days?

Her happy days?

Kitty-corner from the department store's stately, columned and canopied facade, a few hops past the old rec center, we’d look in the windows of Helander’s, the stationary store where I bought my first blank pages and filled them with my first independent words. 

Past this was Kiddles, with its floor to ceiling bicycles and basketballs, football helmets, baseball t-shirts and everything in between. Where Mom and Dad made someone's day when they purchased bicycles for all seven of us.

Certain shops around the square enticed me on these lazy, summer nights, while others, even though their faces were familiar and reassuring, intimidated me for having never stepped inside. 

Market Square Bakery was not one of those places. 

I knew it inside and outside, where the same old, dusty display cakes sat in the same, old dusty display windows for years. Where just through the door, the smell of fresh baked sugary treats hugged you like an aunt and made after-school errands with Mom tolerable. 

On these walks around the old, historic square, we’d scan the streets and the grassy center for a friend among the small crowds gathered around the fountain and benches. Rarely was the time when we didn't see somebody we knew relishing the cool of the evening.

The sounds of strangers laughing.

The chirp of the crickets that accompanied the street lamps and the dark.

Their own ice cream treats.

Our house being on the northern edge of familiarity, the nights we wandered around the square with our Baskin-Robbins’ were some of the rarer moments during my childhood when I felt part of the community, the camaraderie.

So I made my Banana Royale last as we crossed Western Avenue to visit the depot, hoping to see a train before we left the platform. I’d savor every moment in every bite as we rounded the square, passing real estate offices where lighted photos of formidable houses made window-shoppers dream… big.

As the last of the ice cream disappeared and eyes began to droop, the Lake Forest Sports Shop (a mecca for North Shore preppies) told me we were almost to the car, but not until we passed The Left Bank, which was never anything to me but Pasquesi’s; where for innumerable years, after long absences and serious cravings for a truly Sloppy Joe or creamy cheese dog, the bell on the door would announce my arrival and looking up from his tiny counter, in the back of his simple, purple sandwich shop, Mr. P. would raise his head and ever greet me as if I was a long lost relative finally returning home, where I belonged.

At Pasquesi’s, I always belonged.

On the quiet ride home, with the sky full of stars and fields full of fireflies, I’d lay back in the back seat (having had to relinquish the front for a sibling demanding their turn), lower myself from the cool, night air, and dream about what flavor I might get next time.

  

Within Close Range: Tiny Terrors

I'd save every penny I could in order to buy tiny furniture and food, pictures and plastic puppies for my very first household: a two-story, six room, pale yellow Colonial with black shutters, rose-filled window boxes and a square footage of about 3.

I’d place my tiny, new items in their tiny, little places, house proud and satisfied, and then move on to other interests. Returning some time later to admire each new addition to my dollhouse collection, I’d regularly find that someone (Jim) had committed tiny house horrors in my brief absence.

One such day still haunts my childhood memories.

As I came around the front facade, having just fake-watered my fake flowers,  the first thing I saw was a pant-less father indelicately on top of mother in the four poster bed upstairs, while in the bathroom, the next room over, the baby was headfirst in the toilet.

In the kitchen just below, I soon discovered grandmother’s old, grey-haired head had been stuck in the oven of the cast iron stove. (Despite the fact that it was a wood burning model, James.)

I can still see the soles of her sensible grandma shoes.

My eyes scanned right to the living room, where I found the little girl of my little world.

Sitting at the piano.

Hands at the keys.

Staring straight ahead.

I shivered, then wondered about the boy.

The only place left was the attic.

I slowly lifted the shingle roof of my little, pale yellow, Colonial house with black shutters and rose-filled windows boxes.

He was no where to be scene.

Then I saw the trunk.

Oh, the humanity.

Within Close Range - The Phone at the End of the Hall

The phone at the end of the hall, right next to my room, occasionally came to life in the middle of the night; its merciless metal bells clanging, resounding off the tall walls of the winding front steps and down the long, carpet-less hallway leading from one end of the upstairs to the next.

Startled from my dreams and tormented by its unanswered ring, I'd crawl over whichever dog or cat was hogging most of the bed that night and shuffle toward the noise, hoping to get to the phone before another blast of the bell pierced my brain.

Fumbling for the receiver - and words - I'd already know that the only kind of news that comes in the middle of the night is usually bad.

Or at least not good.

And if I was answering the phone, that meant that Mom and Dad didn't, and I was about to be made the reluctant messenger.

Sleepless in the hours that followed.

Anxious to hear the garage door rumble and footsteps - two sets.

Hoping the anger and the lecture had happened on the ride home and details would come over a bowl of cereal in the morning.

Happy everyone was back home and in bed.

And all was quiet again.

Within Close Range - The Universe Upstairs

Mom and Dad’s bedroom suite was on the first floor of the house in Shoreacres (at the southern end of everything) allowing them to frequently escape to its sunlit, coziness and away from the five, wild seeds they chose to sow. 

This left the entire second floor almost entirely adult-free, except for the occasional laundry delivery from Mom and the less occasional drop in (more like official visit) from Dad; usually the unfortunate result of winter restlessness or weekend thunderstorms keeping him from the golf course.

We’d only know of his plans when we heard, “INSPECTION in ten minutes!”  sound from below, at which point all present would scatter from the kid’s TV room to our respective bedrooms, where each of us would begin a frenzied attempt to hide all clothing, toys, towels, glasses, plates, books and general shit we’d left strewn everywhere.

Depending on his level of bother, Dad might only scan the surface of the bedrooms and bathrooms. It was something each of us quietly prayed for as he passed dressers, drawers, desks and closets, cluttered and crammed with quickly concealed crap. If Dad’s heart really wasn’t in it, he might demand some dusting and vacuuming, to be inspected later (which would likely not occur), and then disappear below and we’d half-heartedly obey before returning to reruns, twitching on each other, and/or littering.

If our luck went a.w.o.l. (to a place that didn’t smell of dirty laundry and dog breath) and Dad was disgusted and determined to delve further by sliding open a closet door… an entire Saturday afternoon would be spent re-folding, re-organizing, re-inspecting, and re-revising.

And finally,  promising the impossible - to keep our rooms clean.

Other than these brief and infrequent invasions, the upstairs was our universe, our private world of fun and games and funny voices, where Jim’s rolled up socks turned into stink bombs of such infamy that as soon as you saw him take off his shoes… 

… you ran.

You ran as fast as your stockinged feet along a polished wood floor could take you.

It was also where fuzzy, red carpeting assisted you in shocking a sibling repeatedly one moment, then turned to molten lava, the next; where the chairs and tables became bridges, and the convertible sofa, an island, where captives and carpet monsters fought to the death in battle after battle.

In the universe upstairs, sloped-ceiling closets and dark crawlspaces - too-small-for-adults places - became secluded hideaways where we could bring pillows and posters, flashlights and favorite stuffed animals, and write secrets and swear words on the 2 x 4s and plaster board; and listen to Mom in the kitchen, until the heater or ac switched on and the great metal shafts filled with air and filled our ears with rumbling.

At the very top of the back steps, behind a tiny door (not more than three feet square), was a favorite, secret, upstairs place. 

Just inside, above the small door, Jim built a spaceship’s control panel from old electrical outlets and switches found in the basement and the barn. With Mark as his co-pilot and a vivid imagination as his rocket fuel, he would rally us to climb into his crawlspace capsule. 

I’d sit back in the darkness, surrounded by boxes of memories -  Mom’s heirloom wedding dress at my elbow and Christmas decorations as my seat - anxious for the countdown.

Excited for blast off.

For leaving the earth far behind.

Calling to his co-pilot to flick switches Jim had labelled with a big, black magic marker, then moving his hands up and down his own duct-taped controls, I’d hear the sputters and rumbles of Jim’s vocal-powered rockets.

Hugging my big, Pooh Bear, I’d watch our fearless pilot, in the beam of a dangling flashlight, lean back and call to his unlikely crew through the cup of his hand, “Hang on! Here we go! Ten… Nine… Eight…”

Jim’s rumbles would begin to rise.

“Seven… Six… Five… Four…”

I could feel the crawlspace shake and rattle.

“Three… Two… One… BLAST OFF!”

I’d giggle and squeeze that silly, old bear and close my eyes to see the fast-approaching cosmos…

And I’d float in the infinite black.

In the sea of stars.

Until Jim shouted, “Meteors!” and all hell would break loose in our top-of-the-stairs cockpit.

Rescue usually came in the form of the hallway light cutting through the cracks and the dark - and the meteors - and Mom calling, “Dinner!”

Or much, much worse…

Dad calling, “INSPECTION in ten minutes!”

Eva Can't Sleep with a Lion in Her Room

illustrated by Ananda Di Benedetto

Within Close Range: The Me I've Come to Be

About a month ago, along with my good friends, Jodi and Mike, I entered the world of Toastmasters. I did so not only to confront an old demon, public speaking, but to have the rare opportunity to see an audience's reaction to my short stories.  Although nerve-racking, I'm confident my writing and my voice will grow from the interaction and exchange.

If so, I might just try my hand at podcasts.

The following is my first Toastmaster's speech, voted best of the day.


Nonna and Papa were first generation Italian Americans who grew up in the same immigrant neighborhood on Chicago’s west side, Both came from very large families, totaling 22 children, but when they married, they had only two: James and Arlene, 

James is my father. 

My name is Anne Celano Frohna. I am the third and favorite of five children born to James Vincent Celano, Jr. and Mabel - but don’t tell her I told you - Charline Lemmon. 

By the time I was born, Papa’s custom tailor shop, Celano’s, was considered the finest of its kind in Chicago, having dressed the city’s most well-to-do men - from Moguls to Mob bosses - for decades. It was located along the city’s famed Michigan Avenue, once known as the Miracle Mile for its high-living splendor. 

Born on a farm in Missouri, Mom’s family was early pioneer stock from Germany, Scotland, England - and most heartbreaking for Nonna - NOT Italy. 

You see, Arlene’s four, children are full-blooded Italian. My two brothers, two sisters and I are what Nonna used to call her “Bridge Mix” - a chocolate-covered combo of nuts, fruits and creams favored in her ever bountiful cupboard of candies. 

But tainted as our gene pool was in her eyes, we’ve always considered ourselves Italian - at least in our emotions, devotions and appetites.

We hardly knew Mom’s family, just Lottie, her only sister, and her husband Joe and their four children, But barely, They lived in Springfield, Illinois and for Mom, that was at the opposite end of the universe from the one she and Dad had created along the prosperous north shores of Chicago. 

We did make a trip down to Missouri in the seventies to pick up a Palomino pony from her sweet Uncle Howard. There, we met a few of Mom’s family. Some were very kind, others, as tough as their lives had been. 

Mom and Lottie had it tough too. Especially during those early years of uncertainty, of being on the streets, far from their roots, begging for food, frightened for their Mom.

At 17, after graduating from an academy which she paid for by working a soda counter at night, Mom headed to Chicago where her blonde hair, slate blue eyes and classic features led her to become a very successful model; which she followed with an equally successful career as a businesswoman during an era when sexism was sexy.

And then she met Dad and gave it all up.

Such an unlikely pair. 

Dad was Nonna and Papa’s Golden Boy: a charismatic, social, spoiled, risk-taker, who preferred the golf course to the lecture hall and “the deal” to a full day’s work. Dad had a big heart, a big ego, a quick wit and a penchant for trusting the wrong people. He also had a good deal of trouble with fidelity, yet his adoration of Mom was confusingly constant. He wanted his family to have it all and gave most generously… even when he knew how heavy the cost would be.

Mom had worked her entire life - not only to survive but to succeed, not only to grow, but to become someone entirely different than the Mabel of her midwestern youth. 

Trusting few, befriending fewer. 

She found her way - her own way - with a unique blend of curiosity and cynicism about everything. 

This unusual pair had a tumultuous energy which brought both great joy and sorrow into our lives.

But I am who I am because of it. Because of them. 

And even though this particular gene pool has its dark and powerful undertows, I think that the me I’ve come to be is a good thing. 

So here I am, with my husband, Kurt, and our two daughters, Eva and Sophia, We came here from Wisconsin six years ago and bought a house on five acres up Williamson Valley. 

It was time for a change.

To shake off the grey.

Our happy, little home on our windy, little hill is something akin to the Island of Misfit Toys, but add to it a regular stream of wayward animals -  and people - and thrift store finds faded, sagging and stained, but solid, well-loved and wonderful to be around.

And quirky, musty, dusty, one-of-a-kind things, by painters and woodcarvers and artists with needles, by masters of words and masters of song, dabblers and travelers and dawdlers alike telling their stories with every stroke, every weave, every weld, every word,

I’m a storyteller too.

I’ve been one my entire life.

I even managed to make a living at it, writing and editing for newspapers, magazines, museums and publishing companies around the Midwest, retelling histories, exploring nature, writing about people and ideas, traditions and innovations.

I started writing professionally after I earned my B.A. in Sociology - a degree so utterly useless in the real world that I figured a Master of Arts in English would surely rocket my career into deeper poverty and obscurity.

I received my diploma in the mail, at the beginning of a two year stint I spent teaching English in Japan, in the little farming town of Shintomi, on the eastern coast of Kyushu. I recently wrote a book about the experience called “Just West of the Midwest.” 

It’s a comedy… mostly. 

You can see read it on my blog: dogearedstories.com, where I ply my penniless craft and fill the pages in order to feel like me I want to be, the third and favorite child of Jim and Cherie Celano, born into this world a couple months early on the fourth of October in 1963.

Within Close Range - Dad

Dad’s been gone a little more than five months.  

Actually, Dad has been gone for years. 

Several ignored strokes, until the last big one about fifteen years ago, made sure of that. I think the doctor’s last count was seven different incidents - each one leaving in its wake a little less Dad. 

Motivation was one of the area’s of the brain that had been most severely affected. As was his ability to read and write. His peripheral vision was also shot. 

So he sat. 

And eventually he lost sight of everything that made him tick, gave him purpose, he was good at.

I watched the frustration in his once playful eyes when things weren’t clicking in his quick and clever mind, and quietly mourned the lengthening shadow of darkness and void that would eventually smother the once strong light and turn his weaknesses upon himself and others; until his needs pummeled Mom and his words became brutal.

Jim took him in and centered his life on his new twenty-four hour ward; the once powerful figure who now missed the toilet and couldn’t find focus; who spent the days crying and the nights wandering. By the time we placed Dad in assisted living, the shadow was growing darker and the void, wider. Conversations were now repetitive communications driven by a series of questions he’d ask again and again. 

Always about family, living and dead.

It became impossible to steer him away from this endless loop because it was all Dad had left to hold on to. It was the only way he could be more than a figure in the room, struggling for thoughts, for words, for loved ones, for himself.

His body remained strong for his years and history, but that didn’t surprise anyone. Dad had always been a natural athlete with a small, fleet build and a bold swagger. Yet however strong his heart might have been, his muscles and mind began to atrophy after all those years of sitting, doing hours and hours of nothing. And after a while, his skinny, sinewy legs (which had hiked a thousand miles of fairways and greens) twisted weakly beneath him; while cherished faces and times and places steadily stepped into the darkness.

Rare became the instants, during my all-too-brief, long-distance visits, when I saw that certain twinkle that came to his eyes when he was pleased, or about to be funny… or silly, or sweet.  

Dad’s wheezy, cartoon dog laughter was something, however, that endured and could happily be summoned to the great relief of everyone hovering uncomfortably in his small room scattered with pictures of loved ones, now mostly strangers.

Rarest was the sound of his strong, steady, low voice, which throughout my life would sing in my ear when he used my pet name, or make my heart (and feet) leap when he hollered, “Anne Elizabeth!” The years had made it weak and weary; a whisper of a voice, ever shaken by unaccountable emotions. 

I remember when I last heard Dad. 

It startled me because it had been a very long time since he’d sounded so alert, so vigorous, so alive. 

It happened during our regular Sunday phone call. Jim, at the other end of the line said, “It’s Nonz.” and handed Dad the receiver. I don’t recall a word of what was said. All I heard was a forgotten voice, which until that very moment, I hadn’t felt such ache for. 

It startled me and left me speechless - and anxious - to hear Dad speak again.

But Dad never did.

Yet in that flash, in those few words, he was once again my wings, my warden, my beacon, my banker, my mentor, my tormentor, my knight in shining armor. 

And everything felt right.

And then it didn’t and I cursed myself for not plucking the ether of that very brief moment and stealing those words to stuff deep in my pockets, where I’d keep them to remind me of the Dad he used to be. 

The Dad who’d gather us beneath the covers of their queen-sized bed on stormy nights, when thunder rolled across Lake Michigan like a mighty wave and lightening set a gnarly, old oak outside their wall of windows afire with its flash of silver-blue light. In our small tent of sheets, with our heads tucked close together, he’d tell us ghost stories (while Mom helped us count the seconds between the lightening and thunder), or make us giggle with a gentle tickle, until the seconds ascended, the storm was passing, and we were brave enough to return to our own beds upstairs. 

The very strict Dad who, after raising five children who excelled at bad behavior, gradually mellowed and raised the white flag in the form of a hanger he’d found in a closet, draped with some stuff we grew on the bluff and planned to smoke later. Hanger in hand, he walked into the family room where three-fifths of us were lounging and asked very calmly what he was holding. One of us answered with remarkable composure, “That’s pot, Dad.” 

After he questioned its reason for hanging, Dad reached for a bud, gave it a squeeze and said, “It’s not dry yet.”  He then walked to a nearby table, hung the harvest from the shade of a lamp and left the room without another word.

But Dad had a temper that no one liked seeing, which sometimes got violent and scary, when all that charm and good looks disappeared behind a mask of unreason, and we were left angry, helpless and confused about how a man so loving and generous could have such potent demons.

But then I got older and my very own demons got bolder, as most people’s do.

And the Dad I choose to remember is the one that no matter how mad we were at each other, by the end of the day, he’d always say, “I love you.” 

Except for the time I threw an unforgettably, unregrettably fun costume party: “The Best Little Whorehouse in Lake Bluff.”  

Dad first heard the theme of my party that night from fellow country club members whose children would be there. He was livid. Yet he never tried to stop it. He simply refused to speak to me for days following. 

Passing me in the kitchen. 

Averting his eyes. 

Until one day, I broke the silence, begged for a word, pleaded for a lecture.

Eventually, he gave me both.

Along with a hug of immeasurable comfort.

Even as Dad’s words and mind stopped giving, his hugs were endlessly rich and generous. 

If I close my eyes, I can still feel them. 

It helps me remember Dad when he was vivid and present. A powerful presence. A stubborn dreamer, a cocky, passionate schemer who pursued his passions head first, wholeheartedly, sometimes very foolishly, with great success and equal failure. 

His greatest achievement  - a bountiful life, not only in the hearth, but in the home; where he fostered dreams and fledglings’ freedoms, until off we flew to face our own big dreams and our own demons. So, I’m grateful for the moments I told Dad that I loved him, talked to him about nothing, apologized for everything, and thanked him for the lives he set in motion.

Even though he wouldn’t remember any of it by the time our visit was over.

It’s why some Sundays, I didn’t - couldn’t - pick up the phone. 

But love is in the giving - in the moments Dad heard, “I love you.” So, Sunday would roll round again and I’d answer the phone and tell him different stories about our faraway lives.  And in between the questions and tears, I‘d fill his soon forgotten moments with love and laughter, and long distance hugs of immeasurable comfort.