Thinking of my father on anniversary of his death

On Thursday I sat down at my laptop to look for a photo that I had in mind, and by accident I somehow hit archived older photos and this one of my father popped up.

There he was smiling at me when I realized it was Feb. 16, the 15th anniversary of his death. Time flies. Time stands still. It seems like yesterday that we were at Mount Sinai Hospital watching him take his last breath, and the day after that when my mother and aunt were in a coffee shop and nearly fell off their seats when they saw people wearing sweatshirts bearing his name – Alfred Gordon – and they learned the people had gotten the sweatshirts after running the eponymous race around Central Park practically under his window on the day he died, and just a few days before (even though it was many years) when he had been getting the grill ready at Atlantic Beach after my mother made her famous hors d'oevres to have under the striped awning with the flower pots hanging from it.

But it is 15 years. Diane emailed a couple of markers. Before I was sick. Before we knew about Obama. Al Gordon words: You can't complain. (Even when he could). Long good life. Both parents well into their 80s. Other fathers dying young. Many tragically. But you feel what you feel. Sometimes I feel like they are really here. The quarters that he tells my mother to drop from heaven in case I need them for parking meters. They think of Katie too. Just the other day she found one exactly when she needed it.

Now it's not like the punched-in-the-gut and dazed feeling from the day he died, when Diane and I walked down Fifth Avenue before heading over to Madison to pick up paper plates and such for the people who would be coming over. We marveled that they were walking around just like it was a normal day.

The earth didn't open up like I thought it would, but I'm sure I'm like everyone else in that on anniversaries or holidays the tug at the heart is greater.

My eyes welled up as I sat on a kitchen chair and looked out at the backyard. Maddie came over and sat next to me. I gave her a little pat.

Later when the day had gotten away from me, I realized that I hadn't finished the book for book group that night (Underground Railroad) and I hadn't exercised. It was raw outside. I texted a friend who I had told earlier about the anniversary and the appearance of the photo. "Exercise or finish the book?"

She asked how many pages and when I told her about 70, she said I could do both. Then she asked, "Lazy or not feeling well?" I wrote back that the unwell feeling was emotional, not physical. She said I should go do something because that's what my father would want.

I laced up and although I didn't measure it exactly, I ran about three miles. I came back and finished the book just a few minutes before 8 p.m., our meeting time, and went and got together with my friends. We go to the same house all the time so I didn't have to fuss. We all bring whatever, and on that night we happened to have a gorgeous healthy spread. (And wine.)

I had been reading the book on the airplane to Florida marked several of  Colson Whitehead's striking metaphors to share. In the book following the path of an escaped slave, the railroad itself is actually real, though. In giving him the National Book Award, the judges called Whitehead one of our most daring and inventive writers. We had an excellent conversation about it.

We also tell stories and laugh a lot, so that by the time I left, my mood had lightened. My father ("the walking dictionary") would have liked this part of the day also. I like to think of him taking a break from his tennis game in heaven, and taking it all in. And why not?