Birthday

Dad laughs over a birthday book in the early 1980s.
Today is my father’s birthday. He would have been 68.
I’m not sure how to mark the day–celebrate his life, mourn his passing? I certainly am thinking of him lots but it hurts. Not as much as it did before, but it is still a painful loss.
I’m remembering birthdays past–badly decorated cakes (our imaginations were always more vivid than our frosting execution), Clark bars, joke gifts, golf miscellany and whatever Jenn & I had scrounged up or made. Dad had a whole shelf in his closet of gifts he cherished (I assume) but never used. I suspect a lot of fathers do.