Memories of my father

It's hard to believe.

I can just hear my father saying those words, appropriate to many occasions.

It's hard to believe that my father has been gone since Feb. 16, 2002.

As I lit a candle for him this morning, the tears just flowed down my face.

Katie is home for vacation, and Joe is home, but nobody is awake, so it's just me and my memories.

 I did talk to David, another early riser, who said he and Diane had just been talking about my father as they do all the time.

They had been talking about how all of our parents missed so many good things, but they missed a lot of the bad, too.

My father missed all of my illness, which is a blessing, because it would have been horrible for him to see his little girl suffer so much.

Of course it was hard for my mother, too, but she missed the relapses and lived to see me well.

The top photo is at one of his favorite places, the grill at Atlantic Beach.

It was at the tennis court down the street that he loved to tell me, "Serve 'em up!"

The photo at bottom was taken in 1936.