This house is not my home. I choose to sleep alone. I'm not waiting for the telephone...

Dear Dad,
     In my head is a chorus of out-of-tune kids (me being one of them) screeching in their pre-pubescent voices about looking like a monkey (and smelling like one, too). We are clustered around you as you stare into what feels like your millionth chocolate cake, and the light cast off by the candles is warm. I want so badly for this memory to be real. I want so badly to have had some childish magical moment in which this scene inspires a beautiful and artistic epiphany that manifests itself in my adult life as...something. In truth, I'm afraid that the only takeaway from this moment is the memory that every time we sang, I was fixated on when the cake would be cut and how soon I could get it on its way down my alimentary canal. 

Sigh.

     I baked a chocolate cake today in honor of your birthday. As per usual, it is not as good as mom's cakes are, and, truth be told, I prefer lemon cake, but this is about you...even in your absence. It's okay. My fiance loves chocolate, so it won't go to waste (and it is STILL weird to type that word. How could it not feel weird when I'm just talking about my best friend? We laugh about the formality of it all the time. I wish you could meet him). Oh, whom am I kidding? Chocolate may not be my favorite, but it never goes to waste around me. Insert another sigh here. 

     Today is also the inaugural celebration for President Obama's second term. I wonder how you would feel about it...not just the celebration but the second term itself. If I had my 'druthers, I would not have had you share your birthday with that...other celebration. You are more magnanimous than I, I'm afraid. I wish I had gotten that part of you. I oscillate wildly between being annoyed and amused by the postings on Facebook (wow...how do I explain THAT one to you? You bought us our first computer, probably without the any inkling of the massive amounts of time that would eventually be wasted in cyberspace). I wish you were here to discuss these things (the political ones, not the Facebook ones). I got a little bit of a taste of grown-up-to-grown-up conversations with you. You always treated my opinions as though they were valid, informed, adult opinions, even when they clearly WEREN'T, but I'd love to have had the chance for real conversation. Would we agree? On some things, I'm sure, but it would be fun to try to convince you about things we don't agree on. 

     Fiance? Yep. I have somehow managed to obscure my Medusa mask and Mommie Dearest persona for long enough to rope in the best man I have ever met...well...the second best, anyway. We want to have the wedding in the fall, despite the symbolism the season usually carries with it literarily. For us, it is not about things dying; rather, it is about the cooling of unbearable temperatures, and the unmistakable scent and sound of dried leaves as they crush is something Ohio has that California cannot replace. I so hope that the reception is as much fun in reality as it has been in my imagination for the past 30-some years. Is it weird that I have no idea what the dress will look like, but I know what song the first dance will be? What do I do for the father/daughter dance? I am reminded, yet again, that I was not ready to lose you. I'm still not ready.

     Time for some chocolate cake. Seventy-two years. Today. Happy birthday, Dad.