While this site always goes dark on 9/11, yesterday also happened to be my Dad’s 92nd birthday, so he gets an extra day of celebration, as anyone who has made it to the age of 92 deserves. The last year has continued to bring about a slow and steady decline, but there are still rare moments of engagement and joy that can be elicited, sometimes by the littlest member of our family, his grandson Jaxon Layne.
Every now and then the Dad that we used to know resurfaces, sometimes at the unlikeliest of times, and we are reminded of happier days and childhood and the benign love of a father. For his birthday dinner, he had a few of those moments, when we got him to smile and interact for a brief moment.
I had a couple quiet times with him too, when he saw me and we connected in the midst of the cacophony of kids and talking, liked we used to do. It was a cross-generation of Ilagans at the dining room table, celebrating our patriarch.
Happy Birthday, Dad – we love you.
