I’m on page 251 of the semi-final rounds of editing Dad’s book of memoirs, “Dress Gray.” I figure I’ve put in close to 1000 hours so far. Truthfully, as I look at what I’ve done, even I’m amazed. Sure, it’s been 7 years in the making, but you can’t count those two years - the first when Mom was dying, and the year after her death. They’re throwaway years, so far as productivity on the physical realm are concerned. Still, I’m impressed with this book - there’s magic there, I’m tellin’ ya. Pure magic. Why? Because it’s DAD. To be given the rare opportunity to follow one person’s life from birth to 86 years old is positively cyclical. I want to start singing “The Circle of Life” and it sounds trite but I mean it. When I stop to think about my father being my children’s age, reading about his befriending two baby raccoons and catching minnows for a little spending money, to his Eagle Scout status, to his hard work, always his hard work, that helped get him into West Point (and see him graduate four years later with high marks), to meeting Mom and falling in love, to his time in the Army, traveling all over the US and to Occupied Japan. I follow the line of his life to 1954, when he moves his young family out to Bismarck to start a newfangled thing, TV. I read what everyone else has written about him. I read the poems he loved, the plays he saw, the music and books he loved. I see the polite, thoughtful man. I see the cocky, smart boy. And I realize he is everything rolled into one. It’s NOT a line - it’s a sphere, and Dad’s life is everything that’s inside that Sphere. He just keeps expanding into that Sphere until he’s done this time around.
I see his mom when she’s 49, my age. But I remember Grandma Ekberg being a very wrinkled old woman who spoke with a soft, gravely voice, calling me “Thoosie, my little Thoosie.” I remember Grandpa being a wide-faced man with a light-brown toothed grin. I look at the baby picture of Grandpa Carl, and the lines start to blur again. Time is time, isn’t it? It doesn’t really matter WHEN the pictures were taken, or who was doing what - it’s all interchangeable in my brain right now. And none of it matters. All that matters to me is this beautiful life that I hold in my hands, lovingly going over each punctuation mark and word to make sure it’s all correct. I dream about it, I make plans around its grand release this fall, on October 10th, the 68th anniversary of their first blind date. I have trouble sleeping. It’s seeped into my blood, I think. But that’s a good thing. It’s my Magnum Opus so far, to be sure. 440 pages of pure love, as I forego any payment for the project. This is for Dad. It’s to honor not only his life, but to serve as a testament to a life well and wholly lived. It’s for Mom, too, sweet sweet Mom, whom I still miss quite keenly. But I know she can see the book - she can even see what it’s going to look like when it’s finished, and I know she’s proud. Of Dad. Of their life together. Of me. And I know it’s all been worth it. This one’s for you, Dad. You’re the greatest.