Glen and I texted back and forth all day. He declared it Dad Remembrance Day (DRD) and made himself a Bloody this morning that I would have given at least my left big toenail for, you know how fine his Bloodys are, with just the right amount of kick.
Last night I went looking through my keepsake trunk to pull out tangibles of you--the sandalwood fan you brought back from China, the tiny sailboat you made from half a walnut and toothpicks and a scrap of T-shirt, the address book with its penciled entries in your careful engineer's hand.
But the best find was the folder of emails from you that I printed out in 1997, when I left the job at Random House. You'd just retired, and you and Mom were having a good time. You'd headed back to Jacksonville and were cooking a lot and redoing the bathroom floor and Mom was tending her plants and organizing her closet and cussing you out for farting loudly during dinner with friends.
Glen said he doesn't believe in familiars, but he wasn't going to throw a rock at the redbird outside his window today just in case, and I don't believe in heaven, but I am absolutely positive you're up there enjoying a martini or four with Uncle Bill and Uncle Raleigh. Go ahead and cut loose, Dad, Mom isn't quite ready to come hang out with you yet, she's holding steady and being well attended to, I DoorDashed her and her caregiver each a Big Mac and fries and Coke and a fried apple pie today, and while the caregiver ticked me off a little by requesting extra Big Mac sauce not for Mom's sandwich but for hers, I bitched about it to Glen and did it anyway, as I am wont to do.
I'm gonna go grab a glass of wine and watch something dumb on TV with Sean, Reed is playing video games with his friends, the chickens and dove and dog and cats are making Z's, we all send our love. I know you'll think of me when you eat the olives, just like I always think of you when I eat a shrimp down into the tail like you taught me.
xoxoxo
Tot