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.