My Father's Passing

Journal entry for April 2, 2005
"I sit alone at an airport watching through the thick glass, the sky and the horizon as the sun begins to make it’s presence known. I watch a flat landscape turning slowly from black ink to purple and now, a most lovely peach. The far distance is is squared with the tiny shadowed outlines of humanity’s encumberences and occupations. Pinpoints of light glitter and wink in the growing dawn. Peach turning to orange and magenta cascades off the edges of clouds though they are few and resting low in the sky. I feel the pull as an America West flight takes wing and disappears into the distance.
The sun blazes into sight and though I’m waiting for it, it’s power is difficult to fathom. So far away from us but still the reason that our life takes place this way. The sides of buildings and unidentified objects far away reflect the light, reminding me strongly of Monet’s painting of "The Cliffs". I’m swept away into the image and can almost see the brush strokes in my minds eye, the wind and the smell of the sea spray.
The speed of the sun is usually measured in hours but it’s birth and death can be measured in mere seconds. How familiar that seems. I watched my father lowered into the ground on Tuesday March 29, 2005. The pages of this small compilation of my thoughts do not reflect his importance in my life. Idon’t know how to express the lessons I learned from the past. The years of stone silence caused by a wall of pridefulness, the steel of his hand, the wetness of his tears on my small shoulder, the joy in his voice when we finally found the relationship that had elluded us for what seems a lifetime. The past and, unfortunately the last year of his life was filled with phone calls and talks of karaoke and cookies. Deep fried delicacies and dreams of the future.
I was told by others that he was proud of me.
Perhaps for now, we should leave off at that statement.