and this first is probably the toughest.

Today would’ve been Dad’s 84th birthday. I’d thought about taking the dogs to the beach today and putting some flowers in the ocean … but I didn’t. Instead, I walked the dogs in the neighborhood, made some fish for dinner and took some shots of a diary of Dad’s that I found in his bureau drawer. This page in particular made me smile:

He wrote about the summer vacation we took as a family in 1972; he talked about simple things like going out for breakfast, going to the Cape, seeing his Mom, going to Pawtuckaway State Park, sometimes just going for an ice cream.

I miss him.