Category Archives: Dad

Summer Signals

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firefly

This is the time of year that I like best. Mid-late June, complete with super-long days, warm weather, nights that are still cool, and everything is lush and beautiful. Flowers, grass, trees, the birds and the bees. But most especially I love lightning bugs! I wait impatiently for them to appear every year and it is one of the high points of my summer.

Most people call them fireflies and for many years I called them that, too. It sounds, well, cuter somehow. But we called them lightning bugs when I was a kid in southern New Jersey, and now that my parents and both of my brothers have passed on, it seems more important to me to honor those childhood memories and the simple joys they bring back to me. They are, once again, Lightning Bugs.

I was amazed to learn a few years ago that there are many different subspecies of lightning bugs, and that each one blinks in a different and distinctive pattern in order to attract a mate of it’s own type. There is even one type, synchronous fireflies, found only in two places in the whole world, that can synchronize their flashing light patterns!

The lightning bug is the one of the few insects that I really and truly like, along with stick insects (another childhood favorite) ladybugs, and of course cicadas, which provide a wonderful soundtrack to late summer.

The other night the lightning bugs in our back yard were putting on a spectacular bioluminescent show. My husband and I walked to the darkest part of our yard, way in the back, so we could get the best view. The trees and bushes were lit up with probably millions of them, and the overall effect was one of twinkling Christmas lights. It was mysterious and amazing and somehow seems new every year when I see them again as if for the first time.

My husband got out his iPhone to try and take some photos, and then he was trying to capture them on video. I wandered away a bit and then turned to see what he was doing. And there he was, my sweet husband, optimistically holding his iPhone up to the trees. I thought to myself that he kind of looked like a big lightning bug with his own light flickering, surrounded by all the smaller ones. I thought about what a wonderful husband he is, this unassuming man who I love so much. The man who slept in the car in the hospice parking lot, so he could be near me when my brother was dying. The man who makes me laugh every day with his funny observations and who loves to have friends over for impromptu burgers on the grill. The man who is secure enough to hold my purse for a minute if I need him to. The man who married me and became the world’s best stepdad to my then-14 year old son.

And I realized he was blinking a signal that only I could see, out there in the yard. And I was drawn to him again.

 

Reminders of Dad

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In August 2012 my Dad died. He had a lifelong love of cars and all things car-related, and now, whenever I see an old or unusual car I think immediately to myself “Dad would have loved this”.  This past weekend I spotted an old Volvo station wagon parked on the street and immediately took a photo with my phone and texted it to my sister, with the words “Dad would have loved this!”. She immediately agreed, yes, indeed he would have.

I thought about the old Volvo a lot over the past few days, as Dad had a particular love of Volvo cars. I can usually identify the make and model of an old car pretty quickly. This is something my Dad taught me, and I carry it with me still. When I see an old car I immediately am reminded of my Dad, and imagining what he might say about it makes me smile. Since Dad’s death I have started to snap photos of the old cars I encounter. Discovering an old car still running, parked on the street, out “in the wild” gives me an unexpected joy. Somebody still loves this old car, like my Dad would have. Obviously they do, because it’s out on the street. Not in a museum or a car show, but still being driven around. These cars are worth the extra aggravation and expense to maintain to the people who own them. I always wonder what memories are attached to these cars, memories of drive-in movies, waitresses on roller skates delivering a root beer float, bringing a new baby home from the hospital, or taking a young couple to the prom.

I picture my Dad as a younger man, with his head under the hood, grease on his hands, asking me to hand him some tool, working to keep his old car in good condition, so he could take us on a camping adventure, to visit our cousins, out for ice cream, or just for a drive. When I spot an old car now, it brings me joy. Old cars remind me of my Dad and all he taught me and all we did together.

Thanks, Dad.