11 July 2014 at 12:35AM PDT is the 12th anniversary of my father’s death.
I try to make it a point to stay up, a Memento Mori for the man who shaped my life, in ways good and bad. I tend to stay up to see the clock tick past the moment more often than I go to his grave in the following 24 hours.
Night owls, he and I.
It is from him that I learned the bad habit of staying up far too late, reading until I drift to sleep anywhere but in bed.
He nurtured my love of the wild, untamed mountains that edge my home state. Of the trees reaching impossibly high into the star-filled nights, the sound of crickets in my ears and the smell of bear grass in my nose.
He gifted my sharp tongue, my love of horrible puns, my slow to simmer but quick to boil temper.
He told me to find my stories, to craft them carefully. Even if they were just for me.
I miss him terribly.
An Unperfect Life 