Love Alive

In the spirit of hope - that good things aren't lost and can even return to our lives, perhaps even better than before - we bring back Love Revealed.

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I love you, dad.

I love looking through old pictures and seeing you as a rugged, tough, vibrant seaman, and especially that one where you met mom for the first time at the sailors' dance and snuck your hand over hers for the picture. I loved growing up in the house you'd made with her, always full of your happy energy! How you would romance her, and sneak up behind her to kiss her while she was working (and how she'd pretend that you were bothering her and shoo you away). You taught me what it meant to treat a woman right, in ways like that. And I loved our expeditions into the mountains, "scouting" you called it, when we'd fire rifles at distant rocks or tree limbs, whooping with excitement at every success, and then sleeping together under a tarp as the snow fell around us, just to get up and do it again the next day. Even in the very end, I love how you were looking out for me as disease racked your body - telling me not to be sad - even though I'd been far from a perfect son, and when you had every right to blame me for that! You taught me courage and honor, and in that moment, you showed me what it meant to love.

You've been gone for over three years, but I still think of you every day; still wish that I could just pick up a phone and call you; still want to hear your laugh just one more time.

I know that when I see you next, we'll both be young and strong.