Missing

You died six years ago, and although I don't cry as much anymore I still miss you so awfully, big funny red-beard ebullient bon vivant interested in what I had to say smart booming voice rolling laugh dad.

missing you terribly...

...but at least, dad, I can see thestrals now!

Daddy: October 1943- January 2005

Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going—
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.

(Ichikyo, written on the morning of his death, 1360)

Benny and Moses

Meet my great-grandpas.  If you look carefully, you can see their cigarette smoke curling in the background.  I think candid shots like this one were fairly rare for the era, and I'm so glad someone had the foresight to take this.  The taker was probably my grandfather, which is actually somewhat surprising.  He was a skilled legal photographer who, when doing the occasional portrait, which he did, liked his subjects to be highly controlled and posed.  Maybe he saw something at this luncheon that he wanted to preserve just as it was at that moment--the light? The camaraderie? The leavings of a really good meal? 

Dad: October 7 1943-January 17 2005

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes,  

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Hark! I hear them--ding-dong bell.