fathers

An image of my father that enter my mind at odd times:

I’m in high school in the early 80s, it’s the dead of winter and early in the morning, so it’s still dark out, and very cold. My Dad always got up at 6 a.m. and was at his gas station by 6:30. I’m sleeping on the couch in the front room of his small house, and it’s a school morning … my mother must have been out of town. At 7:15, I’m awoken by the sound of my father coming in the front door to wake me up and take me to school. I look up bleary-eyed from the couch to see his face in the small window at the top of his front door, never locked. When I remember this event, I think of my father’s love for me, often hard for him to express, but obvious to me here.