Tag: fathers

In the light..

I’m not a big fan of Hallmark holidays. Some are easier to ignore than others, but not this one. This one is a blatant reminder of what I no longer have, and I know I’m not alone with these feelings.

That’s the thing about life—you aren’t guaranteed more of anything. Not time, not love, not even relationships. One day you can wake up and words left unsaid, or spoken in anger, are what remain. Echoing through an eternity of what might have been. My father’s been gone for decades now but I know that he knew how much he was loved. I’m happy I told him that. And I was never more sure of his love than in those times when I wasn’t the best daughter.

Father’s Day is joyful for some and painful for others. I think about the men in my life and am so proud of them. Amongst them are great fathers, new fathers, sons taking care of fathers. Some have lost fathers, some have lost children, some have lost dogs—you know I can’t forget the dog dads!

It takes a special person to be a father and maturity on the part of the child to understand the complexity of the relationship.

My father painted landscapes and the ones that I own are amongst my most prized possessions. And every time the shutter clicks on a landscape like the one above, I think of him.

I’m glad I didn’t only celebrate my dad on the third Sunday in June. I may not have known it in the moment but he gave my life a richness that I’m forever grateful for.

Relationships can be as transient as alpenglow in the mountains—treasure the good ones. If there isn’t balance in the relationship, if it’s predicated on you doing all the work, consider walking away. Life’s too short, spend it with the people you love. The ones whose love you never question.

Couldn’t let the day pass by…

without acknowledging my father’s birthday. When I came across this pastoral landscape accented by light falling on a distant mountain, it struck me that it was the kind of scenery he would have loved to have painted. I can almost see him slathering color upon the mountains with his palette knife and scratching detail into the hay bales in the foreground with a stiff, tapered brush.

My father’s been gone for almost twenty years but the memories linger. He wasn’t the perfect father but I always knew that he loved me and he knew that I loved him. I’d give almost anything to share with him what my life’s like now.

Love is imperfect, but that’s as it should be. It lives in darkness and light—touching some for a day and others for a lifetime—a gift, not a right. If you love someone, tell them today, in case tomorrow never comes.

Happy birthday, Dad!

Burning with Light

Caustics… envelopes of light waves reflected or refracted from a curved surface and projected where they can be visualized. Some of the earliest drawings were done by Leonardo Da Vinci, as he drew reflected caustics from a circular mirror in his notebooks.

I’ve photographed these types of images for years, drawn to them perhaps because of their transient nature. Fleeting, ever changing, flashing prisms of color—they’re related to rainbows.

My father, who was an artist, would have enjoyed this conversation but he’s not here. He died twenty years ago and even after the passage of two decades, I keep him close. He wasn’t perfect, but he loved me and made sacrifices in his role as a father.

Fathers…they step up in ways that can go unnoticed. They stay when they should go, they give when they should take, they abandon dreams in their quest to provide security.

Happy Father’s Day to the amazing men who are fathers, or filling in for fathers. You make the world a better place!