Entries Tagged as 'fathersday'
…here’s my dad, Murray Devine, who was far too rarely the subject of photos. Most often, he was the one holding a camera, trying to get all the people and places and things he loved to hold still so that he could preserve us forever.
This early Polaroid shot was so overexposed that my dad’s face is almost eclipsed by a pale, pale blur.
So thank you to Photoshop for bring my dad’s face back to me, many years later. I still miss him so much.
Oh–and here’s a shout-out to so many other dads I love and admire–Frank A and Frank J and Kevin and Bill spring to mind. You are the Babe Ruths and Mickey Mantles of Dad-hood. You stepped up to the plate and took your best swing–not just once but again and again. Sometimes you hit home runs–other times tried just as hard but your luck was against you. Thank you for your love and your courage and your perseverance. Those of us with dads like you are lucky indeed.
Tags: fathersday · My Back Pages · Wide wonderful world
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A Father’s Day memory over at Zen of Motorcycling got me thinking…
Here’s my father, Joseph Murray Devine, showing off his first fish to his proud grandfather.
In book families, the mother is the warm, bright, loving heart of family-ness, but in our family my father played that role, and my mother loved having him do it. She took pride in a different parental role, the sensible one who makes everything stay on track.
It was typical of the two of them that they had secret handsignals, which they taught us. Three quick squeezes mean “I love you”; the reply is two squeezes, which means “Me too.”
It was typical of my dad that he would whisper to me during Mass (soft whispers were deprecated but not uncommon during the old Latin Masses of my youth), “Tell your mother that I love her.” And it was typical of my mother that she would tell me to reply, “Tell your father not to talk during Mass.”
But all of us knew what this reply really meant: “I love you too.” |
Tags: fathersday · My Back Pages
