Father's Day 2010 ~ The View From Daddy's Swing

This is my first Father’s Day without you. My first year not buying gifts you really don't want. My first year trying to wrap yet another Tarheel mug.
The first year I'll pretend not to notice that you never used the one I bought last year. The first year visiting a headstone under long Carolina blue skies with a baseball bat and glove engraved instead of the standard cross and la Fleur. We knew you would hate that. I had to talk mama out of memorializing the Atlanta Braves in the proper tombstone collection of the Proper Church of the South. You were anything but "proper" but still. It's your name I love, not theirs.

A long time ago I gave you this swing for Father’s Day. You shuffled your feet and said, “Oh, you shouldn't have” then sat right down and claimed your spot. I loved to see you swinging there with your bare feet sticking out. It is the place I sit - gingerly - when I visit your porch.

I miss the rhythm of our swings.

I spent an hour with Sis this week in a conversation about you trying to avoid the words "Father's Day". We would really like to abolish it this year. So I'll just sit here if you don't mind and think about fresh tomatoes
and baseball.


and how you'd find a solution to the oil spill complete with a whole lot of cussing on your part. I know. What were they thinking?

Oh. You might want to know about the birds who've built a nest beside the swing in the flower pot. I let them be. Just as you would.

As much as I wish you were here today I doubt it will hold a candle to future moments. The babies will grow up and fly from the impatiens. The Braves will run the bases and you will tell them how. I will walk down some sweet aisle one day, literally or in my heart, perhaps with Baby Boy by my side. He'll do fine. He doesn't have an aversion to suits like you do and the tie will stay on throughout the entire ceremony this time.
That was a joke, Daddy.


I'd say it's a fine day to sit on the porch. There's an odd kind of night air breeze that keeps the swing in motion....it feels just like....Oh never mind.

There's talk of rain. We'll soon have tomatoes.

And you.

There's always you.







*Photography: Mimi Lenox*