garage

it was a day just like today. sunny. fall-like with a crisp coolness, but still warm from the sun. blue. so strangely, intensely blue in the sunniest sky sort of way. and so ironically, because it was one of the saddest days of my life. i take that back. it absolutely was the saddest day of my life.

it was a day just like today. three years ago today, after closing his eyes to sleep the night before, my papa's life in this world ended in the early morning hours of his slumber. i think i may have grieved fully by now. maybe not. i don't know how these things work. i just know that i don't cry as much as i did this time last year, and even less than two years ago. certainly so much less then august 31st of 2006.

now i think about him often, but cry less. i like to write about him on his birthday or father's day {which happen to be close together}. but it's the day of his death that i am most pensive and outward with my thoughts. i share them, because i know when he died, it helped me to read others' thoughts about losing the ones they love. so i do it too.

today was the last dvd in the jazz series. we did not plan it that way—it just happened that way, but i don't think it is an accident. i've thought of my dad the whole way through the series, of course. every time a familiar piece was played that my dad had listened to a thousand times, i could not help but remember what it was like to grow up with him around—always playing his jazz.

but today's viewing was the one that got me. i cried. the film in its entirety had covered all the greats of jazz—from the turn of the century to modern times. but in the last dvd, ken burns paid great tribute to two of the greatest figures of jazz—louis armstrong and duke ellington. they both died in their 70s. like my dad. they were both amazing and talented. like my dad.

learning about louis was a treat—he was similar to my dad in a way—very light-hearted about life. always enjoying it. always getting out of it the very most and the very best that he could. like ellington, my dad was very handsome. he could be dressed in his carpentry attire, all messy and rugged, or in a suit for church. he looked handsome either way.

anyway, i cried at only one other dvd during this series—the first one. almost as soon as we pushed play. {this was over a month ago.} i heard the jazz, and i immediately thought of papa. not just thought of him, but felt like i was still with him—like he was still with me. since he's been gone, there are two things that do that to me more than anything else. the sound of jazz and the smell of sawdust. {he was a carpenter, you see.}

so it was at that moment, as well, that i had an idea to create a blog for my family and me—a place to write about my dad. about ourselves or about our family in relation to how he affected our lives. a place to share memories of him. a place to continue grieving, but more than that, to celebrate him. so i called my twin sister angela right away and asked her to take a photo for the banner. she had one that was very fitting already, so i used that. it's a beautiful photo of some nails and screws in jars—just the kind of thing my dad always had lining the walls and tables of his garage or workshop.

that is the reason i posted these photos today. they are from my garage, not his. the things i photographed in them are not his. they are not even mine. they came with the garage. they are old. but i thought they were beautiful. even while i was taking them, i did not think of my dad. i had not gone out to the garage to take these with this post in mind. i just thought they would be something intersting and new to photograph for a change. it was after i started writing this post and wondering what photos to use with it, that i decided to use them. i took them a couple of weeks ago, and thought about posting them earlier, but just never did. and i'm so glad, because i could not think of better photos for today. again, i don't think this was an accident.

my dad was always in the garage. he was always "cooking up" something. planning some type of renovation for the house. making some piece of furniture for my mom. creating and building a lamp that he designed. sawing on his electric saw {which is the audible memory-triggering equivalent to the smell of sawdust for me}.

so back to what i was saying about the blog. it is called sawdust and jazz for the reasons mentioned above. i plan to have some jazz music always playing there. maybe some audio clips from his memorial service or from recordings of him playing the trumpet. i don't know. there's no format to follow. it's just for family and even friends to go and think about, talk about, write about this man. i don't even know if the rest of my family will join in, but it's there if they want to.

i didn't know if i should make it a private blog or not. then one day i decided i would not. even if a complete stranger happens upon it, there is a chance they could be blessed by this man and what he stood for. by the things that will come out in the stories and memories shared there. so although i will not have the blog listed on my profile page, it is out there for anyone to look at. i even invite you to visit {here}. i don't expect anyone to follow it daily or anything. i just hope that it can be a sort of extension of his memorial. and a tribute to him. i hope that friends and family will be blessed by it.

there's not much there yet. today is when i "launch" it and invite my family to participate. so, right now i have just posted some photos that my friend mary took of all of us at his memorial service. in the photos, we are all singing the hymn, great is thy faithfulness, in front of the hundreds of people who came to remember my dad. this hymn was always sung at holidays, or other family gatherings. weddings. church services. even dinner-time. we always sang it together, so it sort of became known as our song.

if you have read this long post, i thank you. that means a lot to me. i'd give anything to tell my father many things today. but i can't. so i celebrate him instead. and i wanted to share it with you all—my blog friends. it's a beautiful day.

it was a day just like today.