Father’s Day weekend is coming up and I’m missing you.  
I think our son is missing you too.  I noticed he took out the family photos that we displayed at the chapel the day of your funeral almost four years ago.   He has them on his dresser.
There’s the photo of you cuddling with our daughter A when she was just two years old.  She was so cute back then with her hair in a pageboy cut.  She turned 25 this year.  I know she will be missing you this weekend too.
There’s a photo of you in your Yankees tee. You were on my mind as I watched the Yankees beat the Indians this past Sunday. The Yanks brought in almost five runs in one inning.  I know that if you had been here in the bedroom watching the baseball game Sunday afternoon, as you used to be every Sunday afternoon between late April and mid-October, you would have been screaming with joy.  (I bet perhaps you were watching that game too.  Were you?  Huh, were you?) 
There’s a photo of you in your Giants football sweatshirt  with our son D at eight months wearing his Giants jersey too.  You two look like twins decked out in your Giants gear ready to cheer on your favorite team.  I know D misses watching football with you. A and I do too.
It’s Father’s Day weekend and it’s also your birthday weekend. You would have turned 60 years old this year and I can’t buy you a card. You know how I like to buy cards. You always said I should have bought stock in Hallmark. Instead, I am going to buy some nice stones to put on your gravesite.  Like the Jewish tradition, the love and memories of our time together will always be as enduring as a rock.
In this month’s The Oprah Magazine, life coach Martha Beck says that “The world is full of possibilities – even when you lose something you truly loved.”  Martha says that “something we love is always ending.”  She says that “if we keep in mind that the thing we’ve lost was itself the child of separation, it’s easier to let go.  We learn the way through loss to gain, expecting unimagined delights to be born from every sorrow.  It becomes not only possible but delicious to follow poet and writer Rainer Maria Rilke’s advice: ‘Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking/finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.”
My life is very different than it was four years ago.  Just like Martha says, “I have learned the way through loss to gain” in my life after 50.  
I think this weekend A and D, and I will buy a birthday cake and light a candle in your honor.  Then we’ll blow out the candle and make a wish.  What should we wish for?  I know. I know. I know.   We will wish for “a world full of possibilities.”
Judi