So I can always remember this most blessed breakfast of banana bread French toast made with eggs from our hennies, greens swiped from the garden a few steps from the kitchen, and the other half of yesterday’s Doña Emilia cheese empanada 💛. Loads of goodness. Tasting and seeing.

la tierra en nuestras uñas

la tierra son nuestras uñas

y Tus deditos forman (de) todo

Life is funny in the way that it is serious and joyful and a strain and also brings such delight. I was looking for a picture of you, to share with my wishes that you have a great day being loved and honored for the good man you are, and the one I found of you in the café made me smile, seeing your big smile. I looked at your eyes, the same sincere crinkles that perch above my cheeks too when I’m light of heart and happy to smile back at the cameraperson. I saw then for the first time, suddenly, despite all our time together last winter, how you’ve begun to look more like Grandpa than Dad; resolved, at peace with life and yourself, ready to say something that will make someone laugh; jolly even. For the first time I saw your gray hair all at once; processed it. You still have a lot of big plans but I’m seeing more clearly now how time is real in the way comings and goings are real; in the way making dinner and choosing a movie together and you cleaning the haze off of my headlight is real. I smiled seeing you smiling, then cried just as easily as I smiled.

How many more dinners do we have together? How many more seasons will an envelope of your sunflower seeds arrive to the mailbox with a smiley face sticker on the back? How many more hugs, how many more laughs, how many drives?

I don’t know what it’s like to be a Dad, or a man, a boy, a brother, a son. But thank how you navigated the flow of your life to become a man who sees it with hopeful eyes and does what’s needed to make it better in all the ways that are in your power to do. Thank you for being the father I needed to learn appreciation of the little things, to be understood in the ways you especially well understand.

As I’ve grown, I’ve often not known how to just hang out with others, comfortably sit around and talk without doing much of anything. But with you it’s easy just to be there and be at peace. The notes from your guitar drift through the house and find their way to every room and say, “here’s a way to be here together.” I’m grateful my life has come with that.

I don’t know how many more visits or morning cups of coffee or airport pickups or drop offs or long phone calls or simple strolls around the grocery store we get to have together still but I’ll treasure every one of them a little more. I couldn’t think of a better Dad for me and I’m so comforted by the connection we share. Only recently has it made me think for all the times we have been on the same *wavelength*, on the other’s mind and picking up the phone to message at the same time, how it must be the same with our Father God. How He’s thinking of us, how He knows us, how He loves to do the heavy lifting for us, and just about anything with us, to have a little laugh together, how we smile like Him.

This Father’s Day I hope you feel my love for you and also feel Fathered so well by God; that His company will delight you as you have also given delight to me in every song, meal, drive through special spaces, shared knowing.

A Father’s love is at its best a strong, secure, and providing love, a playful and strengthening and guiding love. You have given me this love, and I am thankful. Thank you for the strength, protection, security, insights, conversations, perspective, and support you have always given me. I love you. May God bless you with a great day, and many more of them.

Truly yours,

what God wills He does

- Jesus

tending some flowers, making sun tea,

wiping the mud off of some little feet,

front porch rockers in the rain,

elderly neighbors down the lane

the whole package

I can see me in Italy

pressing some olives, watching the sea,

simple meals with the whole family,

pleasure in sun-dried laundry

che bella vita

I can see me in Michigan

bringing the neighborhood back again,

sidewalk coffee and lots to plant in,

Are they our neighbors or next of kin

(and when did this first change)?

I can see me places I have not been

shared irresistible tastes of Heaven

You’re alive in it all, in it all

wherever I am, may it be with You

April memories crashed into me; cold bean soup with ice, neighborhood walks with dark green leaves and light yellow houses, Friday night films, green tea, consolation.

I don’t want to be sad life comes with leavings,

just grateful for the good these bring, and that they brought you to your best lady,

and a baby to cradle like a loving Father