Steel repetitively cutting through white foam. Upon occasion the appearance of a red streak breaks the surface and is soon blotted by fluffy white paper. I look in the mirror and the man that I have become looks back. He looks a lot like my father at this point in his life. I am just four years short of his last year ever. I remember watching him shave. At some time he switched to electric and it wasn’t as interesting to watch. I expect that if I had mentioned that he would have switched back, despite the cuts.

My fathers life was full of joy and pain, mostly of the physical variety and knowing what I know now, some fear. He had lived most of his life with type 1 diabetes.

I do not know what he was told upon diagnosis as to any limits his life had. I do know that he lived his life as if he had none.

It wasn’t until I was older that I noticed that time was imposing physical limits. Limits that would make sense had he been 25 years older. His eyesight was going. His peripheral vision was the first to go. Laser surgery could only prolong the inevitable.

Through it all my Dad woke up every morning and lived. He woke up, injected himself and went to work. Sometimes he woke up , injected himself, went to work, came home, slept, woke up and went to his second job. My Dad worked a lot to support his family.

I remember coming home for lunch and eating in the basement so as to not wake him.

It would be just a couple hours before he went to his second job. He had four kids by the age of 28. In those days that is what you did, although I am not sure that the schedule wasn’t accelerated. Time was not an ally.

Although he worked a lot I have plenty of memories of time spent with him. My earliest memory was of cruising through the sunshine in my Dad’s red chevy convertible. My brother and I were sitting in the back seat and it started to rain.

I remember my dad laughing and saying,“Its just a sun shower, we won’t melt.”

He kept the top down and my brother and I laughed. His life was like that. It rained sometimes but he laughed, kept the top down and cruised on.

Happy Father’s Day to all the Fathers and those that love them.

Yes, there is some sadness in my heart. But I can still hear my Dad’s laughter.

“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”
Mark Twain