Same Time, Same Place

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Another year, another party.

Some things never change, at least not in small towns. Around here, you hang out with the same people from the time you're a teenager until you're old; you hang out at the same place, and go to the same parties year after year.

Then, eventually, it's your children who take over for you. They start hanging out together in the same places you hung out when you were young and going to the same parties.

So, in Castleton, we have occasions that we look forward to every year and one is the fishing party.

This particular picture was taken sometime in the 90s. Possibly around the time, I started going to said fishing parties. It's a light-hearted moment. A group of friends standing around at a party, just having a good time.

My father is surrounded by people, as always, looking like he's having a great time. He always seemed to enjoy himself at every party and the fishing party was one of his favorites.

It's just a casual photo documenting one of my favourite times a year.

Just Like I Remember

A simple photo. A man standing in a kitchen, a 'don't you love me' grin on his face.

Yet, of all the photos of my father, this is the one that really gets to me. Becuase it's the one that captures him the best.

This is what he looked like at the end. That's how I remember him. His hat, his facial hair, and that boyish grin. I look at it and it's like he just left the room. It's brings him back, since of all the pictures we have that's the one that captures him the best.

He looked like that the day he died. More or less. A different hat, a differnet sweatshirt and he didn't swear the jacket, but more or less the same.

We still have that jacket, it's up in the spare room closet. And the shirt he's wearing in the picture, under the jacket above the sweatshirt, I wear that sometimes just to feel close to him.

But it's not the clothes or even the fact that it was taken close enough to his death that he hadn't changed at all. It really is that the pictures captures that boyish, don't you love me, mischevious charm of his.

My aunt calls the expresion on his face, his "I'm going to raid your fridge, borrow your car and return it without gas, but you'll love me anyway" grin.

He was infuriating and could drive you to distraction, yet you always forgave him and you just had to love him. There was something about him that you couldn't put into words. Some crazy, lovable quality. Somthing that this particular picture captures so well.

That's my father. That's the man I miss so much that it hurts.

My Daddy.

The Way We Were

September 2002.

A father, mother and daughter posing just outside the door of their home. A happy picture, of a happy family.

The father's a little bit tired from all the boxes he's been lugging. The mother's a little sad about what the day will bring. The daugher's both scared and excited about the next chapter in her life that's about to unfold.

The picture was taken the day I moved away to go to college. My first time leaving home. I had to learn to spread my wings a little bit, and they had to let me. What none of us knew at the time, is that this was the last picture of the three of us together that would ever be taken. There would be other pictures of each of us, but never another of all three.

Because in another year and a half, our life would change drastically. The happy family of three would be splintered down to two. The father died, leaving only mother and child.

But, at this particular moment, that is the far away future and it doesn't matter. In this moment in time, we're still happy, still a family.

Oh, the way we were...