September
It was not September, but August. We were in Maine for the celebration of my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary, which is not August, but September, September 7. September is the month of my father’s birthday, September 28, but that September, he would not have a birthday. Nor would some three thousand other folk have another birthday, because of one particular day in that September, September 11.
But it was August, not September, and we knew nothing of planes flying into buildings, and my father was still with me, with me, just me, just the two of us, sharing one more climb up Blue Hill, my father at almost seventy-nine, almost because it was still August, not September, still fit, ascending the steep ramps of the Osgood Trail at his own pace, slow, but steady and sure. We talked as we climbed, deep talk, deeply personal talk, meaningful talk, the kind of talk you can only have with a father who is frank and wise and compassionate. We took a photo on the open ledges at the summit, my father and me atop the mountain for which the town is named, his home in retirement then, a retirement delayed much too long and doomed much too short, and my home in retirement now, a retirement I live not only for me but for him, too, for the retirement he did not have.
It was August, not September, not the month my sister wanted to hold the anniversary party because it was after all my parents’ actual wedding month, but I objected because I could not come in September, because I was much too busy in September with my work, and if we had planned the celebration for September, as my sister wanted, my father would not have been there.
But it was August, not September, and my father was there and my mother was there and my sister was there and my brother was there and I was there, and dozens of my father and mother’s dearest friends were there, gathered from all around the country into an upper room at the Jordan Pond House, eating and laughing and making our tributes to a man and a woman whose shared life had an immeasurable impact on ours.
It was a most wonderful August evening, not September but August, a most wonderful and unforgettable August evening, my father’s face luminescent, reflecting the warmth of the words that filled the room and his heart, glowing with the joy of a life lived with his one bride, their love hard-earned but now surer and more intimate than ever, radiating the knowledge of a grace deeper than words, that gave him his life and made it what it was and freed him to give the same to us. It was August, not September, because when September came, he was already gone.
