283/366 A river runs through it

Today, I took a moment to remember.  If my dad were alive, he would have been 69 today.

I think about him each year on his birthday. I can't remember celebrating his last birthday when he was only 36 and that bothers me.  Truthfully, I don't remember any of his birthdays.  Yet that date is imprinted on my mind.

Sometimes, I can only visualize him as I've seen him in pictures.  I don't remember the sound of his voice.  And I don't remember what he looked like when he talked to me.

I just remember the head cocked smile in his pictures.  The sureness in those pictures.

And it makes me sad that I just don't remember the reality that once was any more.