Yesterday was my dad's yahrzeit - he has been dead for eight years now. My brother and I emailed about what we'd do to observe the occasion, besides missing our dad everyday, as we still both seem to do. My brother wrote a nice piece about our dad for his blog. He talked about the bittersweetness of seeing dad in his daughter, and I thought about how sometimes little things about my older son remind me so much of dad - he has the Shapiro eyes and coloring - but the main thing my brother saying his daughter was like our dad made me think about was how much I want to be like my father. My mom came to live with me for the last 4 years of her life, and I tried to on take my dad's role of bubble-popper, and bringer-down-to-earth for her wild flights of fancy. I guess I want to be that voice of wisdom, and cynicism, and sweetness, and humor, that was our dad, so I really like it that my brother can see him in a girl.
We both planned to drink some gin - on the rocks with a twist of lemon, our dad's drink; when I emailed David, I said I had just put 3 glasses with strips of lemon in them into the freezer (dad liked the lemon frozen - it used to be how you could tell he had been for a visit - little strips of lemon in the freezer) and I was going to light a candle and drink a little gin with my kids. And then I was going to start cooking for Thanksgiving, make the pickly carrots and probably plug up the sink - and I suceeded beyond my wildest dreams - had to call professional help, who is here now.
chex mix
1 comment:
It's symptomatic of how absent I've been from my own blog that I'm only now reading your comment and your own blog entry. Your father and mine were both first generation Americans from Russian parents. My friend Barrie wrote me last month, "I increasingly feel that our dads were also imbued with a certain generational intellectual style, and outsider moral courage that doesn't really exist any more. I'm not just referring to some "Greatest Generation" cliche (although that might be a touch of it??) but something a little subtler." Your post and your brother's reminded me of that.
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