It’s a little after sunrise, 
an early autumn morning—
a chill of hope in the air;
the sunrise is the color of stories.
Today is your birthday.
I’m still keeping count though you
are no longer celebrating:
eighty-eight.
I live in a house you never
visited, in a town you
never saw; I have a new
job you knew nothing of . . .
and I wonder about the life
you lived before me: the
twenty-eight summers and falls,
the stories I never heard.
We were father and son,
yet so much more.
Thank you for sharing the beautiful prose and the photo of your dad.
Happy Birthday to someone you loved. Those birthdays add definition to our years.
Milton, beautiful… and meaningful… thank you for sharing your gift!
all ways inviting us into family, until we realize there is a family where I can know Milton E. as my father, too; and you my brother always!
Love reading this, as usual you hit spot on:) beautiful tribute to wonderful man.
Thinking of you. A friend told me “Close your eyes, breathe, remember, and you will smile.” Sometimes it’s all I need to get through a bad time. Love from the Duceys
Powerful. Missing my own dad today. Sunrise the color of stories. Wow.