Grateful...

What a difference a year makes.  This time last year we were attending weddings, wedding showers, and birthdays.  Those last few memories with my father replay unexpectedly now.


The day I drove him to see his cousin.  We chatted about the Dodgers, hoping someone would buy the team and rebuild the franchise.  He wouldn't let me pay for lunch.  The day Mom donated all his clothes to the Haitian relief fund and he came downstairs in jeans and blazing white sneakers.  The way he told me he loved me two days before he died.


I dropped off white tulips at the cemetery yesterday.  As I was adding water and removing a few leaves from the stone, music began blaring from the park adjacent.  It was a girl's softball team.  I was overcome as I listened to them laugh, the crack of the bats, the chorus of "We Were Young."  I am so very grateful that he is resting there, underneath the trees, near a park.