bird by bird

He would have been 51 today. I would have spent at least 10 minutes in the card isle of Wal-Mart trying to find the funniest/most appropriate birthday card. I would have spent another 10 minutes writing him a personalized message. In the card, I would have told him that he was turning into an old man...that he was looking more like Grandpa every day. (He was looking more like my Grandpa every day). I would have bought him a gift certificate to buy new fishing lures. And red licorice. I would have burned him a copy of the Neil Young greatest hits album that I just bought. I would have had it in the mail on Friday so he would get it by Saturday. I would have called him to wish him a happy birthday. We would have talked about the healthcare reform bill and the KU loss. Mostly he would have explained these two things to me. I would have asked questions and he would have answered them. We would have talked about the flooding at Blue Dog Lake. And Bitter Lake. He would have asked me about...

When my dad would excuse himself to go outside to have a cigarette, he would say, "Gonna go check the weather." I told him that he would get lung cancer and die. He promised he wouldn't. He was right about the cancer.

I'm really not bitter about Valentine's Day. I'm really not. Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate love, and I LOVE love. I'm not in love, but I love a lot. I just remembered this Valentine's Day story as I was driving back to Vermillion this afternoon in the treachery that is the SD interstate in February. When I thought of it, I literally laughed out loud at the thought /realization that maybe I really am under some sort of Valentine's Day curse. (See post on 2/12) ________________________ In my Valentine's Day experience, the worst possible place for a single, 21 year old woman to be on the day of love is, without a doubt, a sorority house. On this day, florists seem to make direct routes from floral shops to sorority houses bringing bouquets and balloons from boyfriends to girlfriends. I experienced this phenomenon for the three years that I lived in Theta, answering the door, greeting the deliverer, reading the card, and placing someone else...

He used to say: "I can't wait for tomorrow!" We would ask why And he would say: "'Cause I get better looking every day!" And we would remember And we would laugh

Last Thanksgiving was the first major holiday without my dad, and even though we still had a lot to be thankful for, my mom, sister, and I weren't feeling particularly festive. My mom was less affected mainly due to her preoccupation with preparing the entire meal: turkey, potatoes, pies, salads, etc. My sister and I, however, were acutely aware that something big was missing, and we weren't quite sure how we were going to get through it. Watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while peeling potatoes just wasn't the same without him. Carrying up folding chairs from the basement wasn't the same without him. Moving all our cars to make room for our relatives wasn't the same without him. Regardless, it had to be done. Allison hopped in my jeep with me so we could move it to the garage in the back, and when I turned on the radio, "Gonna Get Through This" came on the radio. We looked at each other, cranked the stereo, and drove around the block 11 times...

Halloween has always been a very big deal in the Lightfield household comprised of homemade costumes, make-shift haunted houses, and tricky traditions. All of us get into the spirit of spirits, but none as much as my dad. He was notorious for his Halloween enthusiasm and also for a particular pair of Halloween feet. My mom bought them for him after they were first married (27 years ago), and every October 31st, he slipped them on and walked out the door to freak the world out. Last year was the first year that he wasn't able to model the gruesome feet, so in order to carry on his tradition, I slipped them on and walked out the door to freak the world out. The clincher: I worked at a monastery. And it..was.. awesome. The sistas loved the feet and had me model them all day long. This October 31st, I'm back in Vermillion grading papers in bed and every so often, startling myself by looking at the over sized feet dangling over the edge of my bed. Halloween traditions live on!

"Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning."

The other day I was looking through a stack of all the letters, cards, and notes I had written to my dad that he had saved. This note in particular stuck out to me; I had written it one of the times I went back to college after a break. He had left for work early so I wrote him a note and left it in his bathroom to read when he came home. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my dad's accident, and right now I can't think of anything other than that I wish I could have at least said goodbye.

One year ago today I spent what I didn't know then would be the last Father's Day I would spend with my dad. It was an absolutely beautiful Sunday, and Allison and I drove together from Watertown to Waubay to spend the day at the lake. We had planned on buying our dad a new anchor for his boat but instead ended up writing him an IUO and burning him a CD of his favorite songs. When we got to the cabin, Allison went with my mom and grandpa on a "Father's Day drive" and I stayed to hang out with my dad. Neither of us had much of an agenda (we rarely did) so we decided to drive around the lake and listen to his CD. He loved it. He talked about how cool it was that Allison and I were able to sit down and in 3 minutes come up with his top 20 favorite songs. He said that he knew a lot of other dads whose kids wouldn't be able to do that. He was also pretty impressed by the fact that we liked all the music on the CD. As we listened to the music, we drove around the...

I've been avoiding it.. but I think it's about time I tell a story of my own, instead of just copying and pasting what other people have to say. So here it is.. the first segment of my "Nun Series: Stories of last summer" Nun story #1: Piano Man Sister Ida, my favorite sister and also one of the oldest and sweetest at Mother of God Monastery, was my Wednesday night driving/teaching buddy. Every Wednesday at 7:00PM I would pull up to the Monastery to pick her up, she would greet me with a warm hug, and we would head down Highway 81. Together we taught ESL to Spanish-speaking farm workers at a little country church 30 miles away. I always looked forward to our car rides and conversation as well as class itself because I couldn’t wait to hear what would come out of this sweet little nun’s mouth. Before setting out, we would pray for animals to stay out of our driving way (for each specific animal in fact, deer, cats, rabbits, etc.) and for our students to continue ...

Sometimes (what am I saying?, ALL the time) other people can say things better than I can.. These are some examples from Anne Lamott: "It's so different having a living father who loves you, even someone complex and imperfect. After your father dies, defeat becomes pretty defeating. When he's still alive, there are set backs and heartbreak, but you're still the apple of someone's eye" (225). "And she is going to dance, dance hungry, dance full, dance each cold astonishing moment, now when she is young and again when she is old." "I don't know why life isn't constructed to be seamless and safe, why we make such glaring mistakes, things fall so short of our expectations, and our hearts get broken and our kids do scary things and our parents get old and don't always remember to put pants on before they go out from a stroll. I don't know why it's not more like it is in the movies, why things don't come out neatly and l...

"If I know what love is, it is because of you." --Herman Hesse