I’ve (perhaps selfishly?) decided that the image I will keep Dad in my mind is this, somewhere between his mid-50s (when I was still in highschool) to his mid-70s when he was still driving and not needing a cane to help him get around. I’d forgotten this version of him that existed before his health problems began. I was semi-conscious of this slow mourning of the Dad I knew over the last few years he was still alive. Dad when I was still in school is my favorite although he might say I was not quite his favorite then. Ha.

I miss him.

Dad might say toddler me was his favorite. There’s an audio cassette tape of me and him. He coaxes me into singing some songs, “dedicated to your Lola Carna” and throughout the recording I keep saying, “no battery”. 2 year old me was convinced the tape recorder was not working and needed new batteries. Nevertheless, we manage to sing Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” together and sassy me either corrects a verse or wants him to skip to a verse I like. It is the sweetest. I used to listen to it all the time when my car still had a tape player. I’d lose the tape from time to time and then find it again. On the day of his funeral when we got home and some friends and family came over, I was searching for it. B finally found it when there were just a few folks left. When we played it on our record player/tape player I cried and laughed and smiled listening to it. I finally recorded it and have it out in the world with some photos and videos so I don’t have to keep looking for that cassette tape – especially since we no longer have any device to play it on.