Last week I celebrated my 68th birthday. Not a major milestone in the cosmic scheme of things but it was important to me for reasons that became more important with each passing year. It’s hard when you lose your Dad at a young age and it was hard on me because despite my best efforts I was not there at the end. Not being there has always bothered me and even though it wasn’t my fault it will always be a sore point in my life. Dad passed away of prostate cancer when he was 67 and I’ve been biopsied three times, thankfully without any issues. But I have suffered with a nagging fear all these years that I might not get to 68 and make it to the beginning of the rest of my life.
Coincidentally, this past week I also went back home to Buffalo to visit my parents at the cemetery and do some other things, including making some photographs of at the Tops grocery market where a horrible mass shooting occurred earlier this year. I never put my self-imposed birthday milestone and communing with my dad several days apart together. It wasn’t planned and just sort of happened. All of this has made me think about how important Dad (and Mom) were in getting me off to a great start in life and my photographic journey.
Dad took me on my first visit to Delaware Camera Mart and helped me buy my first serious camera (Mom and Dad had previously bought me a Kodak Brownie and an Instamatic), an Argus C-3, and finally a Konica rangefinder. I still remember what it was like being there. All those wonderful mechanical cameras and lenses in the glass cases, not to mention the mystery of what was in all those boxes on the shelves behind. After that my Dad would take me to camera stores to buy film and to sometimes just to just hang out and look around. I miss those times. Most camera stores aren’t what they were all those years ago, but whenever I’m in one I check to see if there are any used film cameras to look at.
I remember when I asked Dad if it was all right to build a makeshift darkroom in our basement when I was fifteen. Both he and my Mom thought it was a fine idea and I was soon off to the races. Equipped first with a rickety second-hand Omega B-22, and then and old Omega D2V, it served me well through college until I went off to grad school and marriage.
I miss my Dad and all we could have shared together if the doctors knew then what they know now. Sometimes it takes a while to realize just how important someone in your life is, and even when you do it sometimes takes even longer to understand the full extent of that importance. Dad thought I should be a writer and it turns out I’ve done a fair bit of writing during my career, not to mention a little blog entry every week for nearly the last seven years. Great parents can make all the difference in your life and I was lucky enough to have two of them! I appreciate what my dad did for me, and how much he believed in me. Like a lot of things though, I didn’t recognize the fullness of it until much later.
Thanks, Dad, for everything. I’ve had a great life and now I’ve made it to the beginning of the rest of my life. I’m sure you knew I would!
Stay well,
Michael