A poingnant essay from a woman who looks back at a photograph and recalls the wonder that is her father.

There is a photograph I’ve seen. In it, I stand on a large rock along a harbor’s edge. I wear a blue coat that stops perfectly at my knees. My hair hangs flaxen, cropped and motionless. My father stands beside me, his shoulder and face hint at leaning toward mine, and he points to something far off in the distance. (I know it is far away from that long-away strain in our eyes.) My mouth opens as if to speak. He smiles.

My father smiles, not about the camera, but about the life that surrounds him. It occurs to me that Dad has a secret about smiling; it is as if each smile holds in it the memory of every one that came before, and they grow deeper and richer. Can you imagine that this man’s eyes actually sparkle when he smiles? It is a gift he gives.

Was there someone about to sail into our seascape that day? Or was it a single, cresting wave assaulting our shingled shoreline to which my father pointed? A cliff’s edge? I don’t know much about that photograph but with all my heart I wish I could go back and stand secure upon that rock, my father’s hand firm against my back. I wish to see again the mystery of the world to which my father pointed as we explored beyond the picture’s edge. What miracle of love was captured in that ageless pose?

I recall a parade in which my dad adorned a float, giving his other gift: music. My father makes friends with pianos and the one he befriended this day was perched at the float’s edge, inviting me to see clearly the familiar bounce of his knee, his trademark tongue poked through mirthful lips. His back stretched...then folded...then stretched again. From his tall body reached his arms -- rebellious branches straying flamboyantly from an oak. I watched him as he passed before the sun and for a moment the asteriated light surrounded him, and magically, he was a silhouette. And then he saw me.

He saw me. He smiled with all his teeth, raised one eyebrow, tilted back his head, and straightened his back a little more ...but just for an instant. Then he went back to his piano. There were others to play for – others who would tune into his music for as long as it took for him to sail by. And off he went, his fingers wild upon the keys like water in a rapid boil. How I wished I could be at every point of that parade, occupying every spot so I could watch that float, upon which sat my glorious piano-playing father, just a few feet away. Moving, yet never leaving.

There seems something strangely sorrowful about how time rivers by us. It meanders so slowly at first, those days when little girls imagine that one morning soon their feet will fit into mother’s shoes; it is a stagnum for little boys who long for the feel of father’s razor to glide across their own small cheeks. But then it races along, that swift and frantic current of time that life is.

But every moment of time presents a possibility of joy. Somewhere joy and sorrow become twins; that is life’s watersmeet. When we sense that ironic twinning of sorrow and joy it seems both as charming as a songbird, and as grand as the operatic passion of thunder. Even a photograph, half-remembered, half-imagined, allows one to traverse over life’s switchback. So we must sail that current, maneouver around its shoals, through its rips and eddies, heading surely to the waterfall. And we must love the voyage! We have cast off into the tempest and time becomes our compass. Yesterday brought us faith; today we have will; tomorrow...perhaps another moment of joy.

I wonder at how my father’s love was filled with such nomadic merriment, and so many moments of joy. Mothers’ love is mysterious and overwhelming, fraught with hope and fear and that complex desire to watch our children grow while at the same time calling an urgent halt to the passing of time. (Not unlike wishing to see by father’s float go by, but never wanting it to leave). I suspect a father’s love is equally complex, especially during the days when there were so few roles beyond breadwinner, disciplinarian, snow-remover and driver. But my Father was much more!

Every so often, seemingly unprovoked, dad commanded all the residents of our abode to collect socks. Every sock of which we were the owners and even ones, hidden in crevices, which seemed to have no owners at all. It was a sock-mating ritual and it was a thrill for me. I wanted to help. I wanted to find the most pairs and fold them the fastest, just the way he had shown me. I wanted to arrive amongst my siblings with the least odd socks to match. I wanted him to understand I shared his passion for order!

Dad began with a kaleidoscopic ocean of wools and acrylics methodically transforming it into smaller pools of red, white and black. The socks with holes and broken elastics found their way into the trash, then a little pile was left: the mysterious odd socks that would be bound together with a single black one, put away until the next time the exercise was called. (It occurred to me that my dad’s black socks far outnumbered the rest and he was the true culprit behind the sock chaos.) Sock-mating still charms me.

Of course, my father’s talents went way beyond sock-patrol. This gravy-perfecting, bear-hugging, child-wrestling, list-making, knot-tying, bread-baking delight remains a legend for packing many things into small spaces. And concerning parcel-wrapping he is a Titan among minnows!~ He could build an igloo, ride a motorbike, ski down hill, sail a ship, create a kite and somersault off a diving board –all without his children suspecting he possessed these awesome abilities! My childhood was filled with his surprises, because he approaches everything as though he has done it for a lifetime.

Although I know he deeply senses that sorrow of belonging to a finite world, he does most often seem to live in a world where time does not exist. It gives him his daring and his joy and his confidence. And it is his confidence, not in himself but in others, that provides him with life. It his belief in others that gives him his heart – and gives them theirs. And his heart is as young today as it was more than a quarter century ago when he stood with me , captured on that shoreline, showing me ... who knows what!