Category: Dad
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Leave the Dust
We vacuum religiously at our house. Dusting is another story, but you wouldn’t know it from our shelf full of dusting supplies: fuzzy blue Norwex dusting mitts, a California Duster, cans of Endust and Pledge, a Swiffer duster, and a pile of rags big enough to suds the entire exterior of the house. But the…
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Six Feet
We went to the site together, you and I— I drove you there to inspect the stone, newly placed. The summer sun was bright, your grassy spot speckled with shade. You stood six feet back, shoes planted near their final resting place. Six feet of summer green and creeping shadows. We went to…
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Dear Dad
It’s Father’s Day week. In honor and memory of my dad, I’ve been drinking out of one of his mugs. I think I gave it to him for Christmas 2004—at the end of one of the most difficult years of my life. By Christmastime I was halfway through my first year as a graduate student…
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A Holy Week
This has been a Holy Week to remember—or, some might say, to forget. With COVID-19 flying around the globe, most of us have “been sent home until further notice,” and the most holy week on the church calendar has been forced into cyber space. I began the week Facebook chatting with my church family before…
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Dad
It won’t be long now. We’re about to lose our dad for the second time. We lost him the first time on June 1, 2005. That morning as he prayed with my mom—as he did every morning before the day got going—he suffered a massive stroke that robbed him of a great deal of cognitive…
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“I want to go home.”
As I stared into the porcelain bowl of a hotel bathroom on Sunday night, I wanted two things. First, to stop puking, and second, to go home—in that order. A stomach bug when you’re an airplane trip away from home is magnified misery. Think TSA, crowds, and carry-on luggage. Think airplane bathroom. Think seat-in-its-upright-position. On…
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Minding the Melody of a Marriage
It was Christmas Eve, and we were spending the morning with my dad, who passes most of the day in his recliner—napping or staring out the window. I looked around for things I thought might interest him, a challenging exercise since he seldom tells you. Questions are usually answered with a stare or a shrug—neither…
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A Daisy in Winter
It’s a mild January afternoon in Minnesota, but no one here is fooled. Daffodils and daisies, some of the earliest and cheeriest signs of spring, are months away. Plenty of subzero temperatures, sheets of ice, and piles of snow lay between here and that most wonderful time of year when winter gray gives way to…
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Of Gravestones and Obituaries
Several years ago I took my parents on an expedition, at their request, to the cemetery where they will someday be buried. We stopped at the main building, found a map indicating the location of their plots, and drove to the site. I parked the car, and as they made their way across the grass,…
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A Little Red “R”
The face value of my dad’s gift was only one dollar and thirty-nine cents, hardly a fortune and barely even a gift. But it was a treasure from the man I have loved all my life to the man I will love for the rest of my life. The recipient of the one-dollar coin and…
Three Rubies Press 