When you are a parent everyday is a father’s day or a mother’s day–for the rest of your life.  If you are lucky, you get to live long enough to suffer your children’s travails, survive their adolescent brain storms, enjoy your own descent into ignorance as they ascend into their young adult superiority, and, finally, celebrate the goodness of life, together, as friends.

My father was that lucky.  I was that lucky.

I could spend time today reflecting on all of my regrets, those visits thought about and not planned, the plans made but not pursued.  I don’t think my daddy would take kindly to that wallowing.  “Life is good,” he would say.  Over anything.  Tomatoes ripening on his vines–life is good.  Enough basil to cut and share with the whole neighborhood–life is good.  Phone call with granddaughter–life is good.  Our walks in the Duke Garden–life is good.  Squirrels at the bird feeder–life is good.  Absolutely.

This Father’s Day I remember all the days I had my father here, a phone call away, and I remember all the ways I carry my father’s days in my heart.  Life is good.