Things to Do - A Day At The Park

It seems like awhile ago, but Thursday, February 17th was such a beautiful, warm winter day. We spent the afternoon at the park with friends and the kids ran and ran (no coats needed). After the park, a close friend hosted a picnic dinner in her backyard and we watched the sky fade from blue to lovely shades of yellow, pink, purple and, finally, black. Then on Friday, I flew home to see my dad. On Saturday he died.

My dad spent the last three years fighting stage 4 esophageal cancer, so I had plenty of time to prepare for his passing. Unfortunately I still wasn't prepared. My father taught me two major lessons in life. First, knowledge/education is a gift, never an obligation. I never HAD to go to school, instead I GOT to go to school. My dad, a high school history teacher by profession and an avid fan of Trivial Pursuit, loved learning. always. Once when I was in law school my parents came to visit on a night when my neighbors, one of whom was working on a PhD in Anthropology, were throwing a dinner party. I'll never forget the conversation my father had with this man, my dad had read more books on anthropology than the PhD student had. Or when I was in high school, my father decided he needed to learn about biology, so he hired my friend's sister to tutor him for the day, and after that he started reading Scientific American. He was never dogmatic, at least not until the later years of his life, and taught me to look at the world from all sides and never accept simple answers.

For my father, physical exercise was also a gift rather than an obligation. Until his illness, my dad was the only person I've ever met who worked out every day of his life. Well into his 60s my father went on 10 mile walks around the neighborhood, always discovering new things. One of the hardest parts about my father's struggle with cancer was watching him gradually lose his ability to walk long distances.

As cheesy as it sounds, my father was seriously one of the nicest, kindest people I've ever met (I can remember waiting on street corners as a child while my dad helped little old women that we didn't even know cross the street) and I will miss him more than I can express.