Anniversaries

Anniversaries are synonymous with positive events.  You have wedding anniversaries, months or years of dating anniversaries, sobriety anniversaries and even job anniversaries.  Today marks 1 year since I lost my father to a heart attack/stroke.  He was just shy of his 80th birthday.  There will be no cake or balloons, chocolates or party hats, Champaign or love notes.  I can only honor this great writer and editor by putting some words to paper to commemorate him.  I have mentioned this before but it is worth noting again that one of the magazine artists had drawn a picture as a joke which he proudly displayed in his office, and later on at home.  It showed a writer trying to walk but he couldn’t because giant pencils had impaled him and come through the other side of the body.  The caption read, “Mr. Gates is one tough editor.”  I would have felt ashamed of such a picture but dad hung it with pride.  He was a tough editor and I felt his lash like many others.  I can’t believe he was popular at work he was not in a job where you make friends.  Still, he had a certain amount of power.  Once he took my brother and me to the printer that produced their magazine.  That day they were printing hockey cards.  We collected and traded cards and the printer gave us each an uncut huge sheet of cards to take home.  Never did I imagine that they would be worth something one day so I folded it up and stuck it in the back of my closet.  After a few years they were destroyed.  Dad would take us up to a Christmas tree farm north of Toronto where you walk through the woods and pick out a tree.  Then Dad would cut it down and drag it to the car.  Next he would strap it to the roof and we would take the long car ride home.   After his first heart attack we moved down to his childhood town south of Windsor on Lake Erie.  We had a cottage there.  Dad tore out all the walls and ran new electrical wiring throughout.  Then he insulated the house and had a furnace put in.  Even after injuring his back, he soldiered on and made sure we were safe.  As a teenager you may not fully appreciate what he did, but you remember it.  When I was 16 I could finally get my Learner’s Permit in Canada.  16 days later my father trusted me to drive him and my mother to Detroit Metro Airport for a flight to a trade show with only my blind brother as a copilot. (His license hadn’t expired yet so technically it was legal if unadvisable)  I nearly had accidents several times and the border guards were harsh…but I made it through because my father believed I could do it.  I toast to you Father.  You brought out the best and worst in me but you always loved and protected me.  Perhaps this is more of a celebration than I thought.