You would’ve been 66 today. The last memory I have of you is when you drove from California to Texas to see mom and dad. They’d already planned on spending the weekend with us, so you came with them, to my pleasant surprise. And that was the weekend you helped me build the deck. Your hands helped build this deck. A thing in the physical world that is proof to me that you were once alive and breathing. I liked having you here, alive and breathing.
I miss you. I love you.
This is the only photo I took that night.
I took the girls to eat dinner at Habana on August 13th. It was an intentional dinner. I chose the date because two years ago on August 13th we left the house and started the road trip to move Maly to Charleston. That was one of the worst days of my life. They say the best thing about being a parent is watching your kids grow up. And the worst thing about being a parent is watching your kids grow up.
It was also the Thursday before Mara started high school the following Tuesday.
It’s the time of year when I usually start getting really depressed. A new grade or a new year in school is my children growing and me aging. A reset. A chance to look back. For me to look at and wonder, “did I do enough? Did I say enough? Do they know that I love them?”
I didn’t have an agenda for dinner. But I told them the significance of the date for me. Maly recounted it as a pretty negative experience in her life. Mara didn’t have much to contribute on the subject of her starting high school. I hope it’s just her inherent stoicism.
It was really nice to just hang out and have dinner with my girls. I didn’t try to force it to become a “Core Memory – Summer 2026.” We just hung out on the warm and breezy patio, ate some Cuban food and talked about whatever we talked about.
Here’s an old photo from a daddy/daughters date:
