He used to carry me when I was a little kid. I carried his urn in my hands and placed it in the ground. They played Taps and the navymen gave my mother a flag. I was crying. Not so much for sadness, but just because it was so moving...his long life come full circle.
My mom was widowed when I was ten weeks old. My dad, this man who raised me as his own, went on our first threesome date by taking us to the beach, me and mom and him. Mom just told me that last week. A young man recently out of the Navy, going to college, courting this woman who already had a son. I could not have been more than fourteen or fifteen months old by that time. And eventually, of course, being a baby, I had to have my diapers changed. He did it, by himself.
Love is a choice. If chosen again and again, it becomes a habit, which, as St Thomas says, is the form which virtue takes, a second nature. You can take it for granted, not even notice it after a while. But it begins in a choice. A choice he made.
Tears again.
Thanks, Dad.
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1 comment:
Beautiful, he was a true father and your mother was lucky to find love with such a man.
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