It’s like throwing away the left over cards from his funeral.

These are little bits and pieces that are left of him, so getting rid of them are difficult if not agonizingly painful.

To the living this is all we have left, the papers, the books, the sweaters, the tangible things we can still hold, touch and smell.  Why on earth would you want to get rid of that?  If that is gone you have nothing to hug and hold, feel or touch.  But I can’t keep these things forever.

So we plant trees to visit, to sit next to and to summon the memories.  Every time we drive around Lake Calhoun the kids want to stop and visit grandpa’s tree.

I took this photo a month or so ago.  It says so much to me.  The kids just hang’n out, playing and watching the sun set in one of the most beautiful parts of the city that my dad loved.

I find him here most.  The memories come flooding back for me in this place.  As the kids play, I know he is there taking part in it all.

I got my love of celebrating birthdays from him.  He showed me that you can take an entire month to celebrate your birthday.

If he were here today, he would most likely do the following: go to church, meet me at Yum for coffee and a treat, have a cigar with his buddies, read an amazing book or walk through the used book store, meet my brother for lunch, come see the grand-kids so they can huddle around him, meet friends for a cocktail and finally land at home to finish the night with my mom.

He would do the things he most enjoyed in life and shared his time with those that were dearest to him….for many, many weeks. Seriously, it was a talent.

I think today, I’ll go smoke a cigar in his honor.

Happy Birthday Dad.

Yesterday, KP was hang’n out with his buddy Joe.  They were asking funny questions of Joe’s magic 8 ball.

Then KP shifted gears and asked, “Will my Grandpa come back to life?”

The reply on the ball was “Nope, not this time.”

In a disgruntled voice he said, “OH MAN!”

What a perfect question from a six year old who loved his grandpa so very much.  How I wish that magic 8 ball would tell us all he would be back.

The void is huge, the hole is deep, life has shifted and that is the way it is.

We all miss him.

Dad, cheers to you today.  We miss you, we love you and we have not forgotten you.

I love you!

Last year he wrote everyone a letter as part of their gift.  I will pull mine out and read it again, I actually keep it in my camera bag.  I wonder how long I will do that for?

My mom has not even read hers.  She couldn’t read it last year.  I told her to look at it as her gift from him this year. Then the tears rolled down our cheeks as they seems to have been on and off this past month.

To see his handwriting, he was here just not so long ago but it feels like forever since we’ve embraced.

Last week, Jen and I ran in the wee hours of the morning and then went to put a few Christmas ornaments up on his tree at Lake Calhoun.

I know he would love that, although, I know he would think that I should have put up more than three, he likes lots of lights and ornaments ; )

At the end of dinner, all the kids crowded around Papa to read the notes.  They were read one by one.  The kids tried to guess who wrote what.  Some of us fessed up, some did not.

It was CT who wrote this:

As it was read, he looked up into my mom’s eyes and gave her the sweetest smile and head nod.  It was as if to say, don’t worry Grandma, we won’t forget him.

It had.

As I looked at it and its color and looked around, it was so quiet.

No one was there.

It was the first time I had not seen anyone sitting on the bench or someone stretching or chatting or resting their bike on the trunk of the little tree.

A feeling of loneliness came over me.

The large gaping hole that he left, will never be filled.

(photo from last year)

They all want to win so badly, I know there will be some broken hearts in the bunch.  I keep trying to tell them what I tell myself, “race the best race you can, today.”  It took me 4 years of triathlons to get that, to not get so wrapped up in what “place” I was going to get (you never know who will show up that day) and to just do the best I can, race against myself and that will have to be good enough for today.

But they are still young, with many miles to travel before they get that point and that is totally ok.  Hopefully by the time they are 39, they will.

On a side note, I will be racing the 1/2 iron race on Sunday.  It will be the first time my dad won’t be there to kiss me at the finish line, ok he was actually really sick and didn’t come to the finish line last year…but he was still here.

This race will be for him.

I miss you dad and the finish line just won’t be the same without you.

When I was young we would walk the lake to together.  I have no idea how many times we walked that lake, but it was a lot. We called that Daddy-Daughter day.  We would include stops at books stores, eat some delicious treats (he always called eating treats when you were really not hungry recreational eating).  These days are days in which I had my first cup of coffee, my first Vietnamese food, my first scone, my first hit of Gay Pride, the Uptown Art Fair and so much more. But I digress.

So, selfishly, I really wanted this tree planted in a place where I remember the times we shared.  The times we spent together, in a place he loved.  A place that I run by, at least once a week.

Today, with the help of many friends, my dad’s tree was planted and we put the band around its tiny little limb.   The band simply says, “In memory of Tom Tremmel”.

The tree is an Autmn Blaze Maple, which will turn bright red in the fall.  It is planted right next to a bench and sits on the east side of Lake Calhoun between 36th street and 32nd, if you are traveling by car.

Come on by some time, take a seat, say hi or just sit and take in the beauty…

and remember.

Not sure you could ask for anything more.

Happy Father’s Day!

While they were away, KP, PJ, my mom and I had breakfast and took off to the cemetery.  Since we haven’t gotten a headstone yet, we decided to grab some rocks and some paint and do a little art therapy for the living.

Then we started walking around the cemetery and back behind the shed, were the caretakers keep stuff and throw other stuff away.

My mom found live plants in a pile of disregarded dead ones (Anne Marie, there were a few plant stands there too).  KP found an old rusted out dragon fly and PJ put together bouquets of weed-flowers.

When we put it all together my mom said, “Your dad would have loved doing this.”  I said, “Well, he wouldn’t have loved doing the art, he would have loved the fact that we were steeling this stuff from the back of the shed.”

I really miss you dad.

Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped away into the next room, I am I and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still, call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way you always used.

Put no difference into your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow, laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we always enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me, let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow in it.

Life means all that it ever meant, it is the same as it ever was, there is absolute unbroken continuity.

What is death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind, because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner, all is well.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost, one brief moment and all will be as it was before.

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral

I know, crazy pop is what you are thinking, but really??? Is it all coincidence or do we look for more meaning in the mundane happenings?

Yesterday, the kids were playing a game and they kept repeating the word AMAMENTO.  Now, that word means nothing to you and it was a made up word to them.  But to me, it stopped me in my tracks.  I turned to them and said, “What are you saying?”  They repeated, AMAMENTO!

The night my dad and I had our last conversation, he used that word.  He was confused and he was trying to get an idea out and all the languages he knew flooded together and out came AMAMENTO.  We joked about it and the conversation went on and on using the word.  He found out the made up word could be used for many things.  The word could be used affectionatley, my dad grabbed my mom’s hand, kissed it and tenderly said AMAMENTO.  Then it went to the other side of the coin where he put his fist up in the air and said, “Fucking AMAMENTO”.  It could be used for many things and we kept going as long as we could.

It made us laugh.

It was one of our last conversations.

My kids have never heard the word, but yet here it is.

I’m not sure if my dad was trying to communicate something to me from the other world or if it is just a happy coincidence that brought me right back to his memory.

Either way, it makes me feel close to him again.

AMAMENTO dad…AMAMENTO!