Arizona to the North Cascades

 

Diablo Lake.

At the end of September 2012, I headed back out to Arizona to see my dad, still struggling to recover from surgery.  Or so I thought.  Though he tried a bit of physical therapy for a few weeks to get back on his feet, I learned later his heart wasn’t in it and he was slowly giving up hope.  I tried to encourage him.  A lot of things were looking up, I said, even if it had been a long, difficult haul.  The doctor and nurses agreed.  He would get on his feet and inch along with his walker, but the pace was too slow and he felt no sense of optimism that he could ever really walk again.  After a few days, his attitude did improve slightly, the pain diminished a notch or two and it seemed he might finally be putting the worst of the recovery process behind him.

I left him there for ten days and headed up to Bellingham for most of a week, where I managed to get back in the hills for a few short strolls along Canyon Creek, Happy Creek and the Happy Panther Trail.  I joined old friends briefly for a volunteer weeding party at Diablo Lake, then spent several more days getting a little work done on the rental.  Next came Oregon for a three-day conference and more short rambles around the base of Mount Hood in perfect October weather.

From there, I zipped over the clouds back to Arizona to check on my dad.  This time it wasn’t good.  In fact he had given up altogether, wouldn’t eat and decided he just wanted to be done with it.  He’d lost his wife in March and without any real mobility, and not much sensation left in his hands, he felt no need to carry on.  So I stayed with him until he slipped away on October 28, 2012.  My brother from PA joined us there while our dad still knew who we were.  Amazingly, just three days before he passed, he was still telling stories of places he used to sail, rattling off the names of classic wooden boats he built or helped build, most of which are probably long gone by now.  I’ve posted below a photo of one he designed and built in the early Sixties—a 40-foot schooner, Destiner, that was the pride of the fleet.  Rest well, dad.

Mount Hood, OR.