My dad

My dad is in the hospital. Very weak. Fluid around his heart. A growth on his lung.

I feel like this hat. Lost. Beat up. Waiting for the tide to carry me to the deep, as it has too many times this past year.

You'd think I'd be used to it.

I am not.

*
I have a journal I gave him as a gift (blank), which he filled up and sent back to me some years ago. I'm reading it again, seeing his life through his eyes.

Here are a few lines from his lifelong love of travel and adventure:
"Our first stop was Bermuda...the island could not hide its beauty, and I knew I would visit it again sometime, somehow." (He did indeed return and ended up living there awhile with my mother and sister.)

"Fez is built on a hill, overlooking two valleys landscaped with date and palm orchards. The city is over a thousand years old and at one time had constructed a tall wall around the outer perimeter to protect themselves from enemies. Most of the buildings are white with red slate-tiled roofs and , as you approach the city from a distance it appears to be shimmering."

At the journal's end he wrote: "Well, at least I got as far as Shanghai. I'll get another book and continue..."