Time Passages

Mercy; today would have been my dad's 80th birthday. He passed away in 2001, which sometimes seems ages and ages ago...and other times so recent that I can recall every detail of that very difficult time. For many years, our family would go to the beach around the time of Dad's birthday, so most of my memories for this week in June are of sun and sand. Good times indeed. And suddenly, I have a hankering to go to the beach.

Today is also my great-uncle's 94th birthday. He's still getting along; hope I do so well if I ever manage to make it to some ripe old age. Of course, I was never sure I'd make it to 50, and now I'm past that, the future seems closer but less predictable than it used to. Of course, I've never been any good at predicting, and not being much of an optimist, that's probably a good thing. Well...I suppose you could call me a glass-half-empty kind of optimist. Yeah.