I was going to write a blog about Dad on Father’s Day, but it seemed like everyone would be doing that. (Of course, and why not?) Now we are in Portland to visit with family, and Kim I have been able to spend two days with Mom, Dad, and sister Arin.  It has been a long time since we saw everyone (too long) and it has been so nice to just sit and catch up. We’ve spent hours talking; it’s amazing how the time passes. Fortunately, we have six more days and nothing to do, so we’ll all probably be sick of each other before the time comes to leave.

Dad and Kim get along very well. They seem to identify with one another, maybe because they’re both lefties. It’s so nice to see. Dad is, naturally, getting older. He doesn’t walk as well as he used to, and he claims that he can’t remember anything, and he gets overwhelmed with emotion often, which seems funny since everyone’s claim has always been that he is emotionless. As his son, I watch him. I watch the tremors in his hands, and see what his face looks like, and his hair, and his skin.

Kim’s father passed away on the fourth of July, eighteen years ago while we were first getting to know each other. She misses him so much.

A funny thing happened last night, while Kim showed photos that she took at home, of the storms and the sunsets before we left. There was a beautiful rainbow over the house on Monday night. Kim tried to catch it on the camera, but no matter how good the camera they are never as good as the human eye, with the human brain behind it, and the whole field of vision given us when we look out on the world. When she began to talk about it, Dad almost shouted out, “Was it a double?” He was excited about it, as excited as Kim was when she saw that beautiful double rainbow. I never would have expected him to care about such a thing, but there it was, echoes again of my wife in my father, and vice versa. What a wonderful thing.