The Rock

I was talking to a friend of mine at work today. She brought in the most beautiful framed print of two hand prints, touching each other, with dried flowers all around, in a gorgeous mahogany frame. Just too look at it was wonderful. When she began to explain what it was, I almost started crying.

The two hand prints were of her and her sister, who died tragically a few years ago in a car accident. The dried flowers were from her sister's funeral, and the frame, her husband made for her. It was absolutely astounding, because not only was it beautiful, it wasn't sorrowful looking. Just a nice reminder for her of her sister.

Then, I began thinking about my rock. I have this small rock I keep in my car, in a tin from "dragon gum". It's just a plain old gray beach rock. Very smooth, very touchable. My rock, I've carried with with me for about 7 years now. It stays with me in my car for luck.

You see, my rock, is a memento of a precious trip I took with my dad, and as it turns out, it was the last trip we were able to take together.

When I lived in San Francisco, my dad would come to visit me without my mom. She didn't really enjoy the trip, and circumstances at their home didn't allow them both to be gone at the same time. So in October of 2000, my dad came to see me by Amtrak from Southern California. I picked him up in Emeryville, which was the closest Amtrak station at that time, he could have taken the Amtrak bus to the Ferry Building, but I was so excited to see him, I drove across the Bay Bridge to go get him.

It never failed when my dad came to see me, I would have a wonderful time. I was "daddy's girl", I had always been. He was my biggest cheerleader in life. I loved him more than anyone else in the world, even now the only people I love more than my dad are my own kids.

I would always cook him special dinners, grilled steak, shrimp, I'd go down to the wharf and buy buckets of crab and we'd put newspapers over the kitchen table and crack them with tin cans since I didn't have crab crackers.

We would always drive down the coast from San Francisco to Santa Cruz as well. There was a little coffee place in Montera that had a deck, sitting right across from the ocean. The deck was glassed in, so that you could sit out there, have coffee, enjoy the view and not get blown over by the sea winds. They had the absolute best rocking chairs in the world. We would then drive on down the coast, stopping in Half Moon Bay at Barbara's Crab Shack (I think that was the name, I'm not positive). I found out about the place years ago from a local when I asked him where they had good seafood.

My dad and I would fill up on fried shrimp, clams, coleslaw, a few beers and we'd sit by the coast and eat our food and talk talk talk. I loved talking to him so much.

On that trip, we did all of the above. On his last full day there, we went for a walk on Baker Beach in the city. We were walking and talking like always, and he bent over, and picked up this little unassuming rock. He stood back up, and said to me, "Here you go Kid" and handed it to me.

Two months later, my dad had a stroke. He did recover from that, and managed to make one more trip to the Bay Area because my sister drove him, so that he could see my new born son.

The next six months were spent, taking my son back and forth to Southern California to be with his Grandma and Grandpa. My husband and I would go out and buy steak and crab for my mom and dad, and I would sit there and crack crab for my dad until he had his fill. For the rest of my life, I'll always be glad I cracked all that crab for my dad.

My dad died of lung cancer 6 months after my son was born.

So my rock, my seem unassuming and random, maybe it is. But it is also one of the most treasured items I possess. Not a day goes by, when I don't think about my dad, and how much he is missing. Even sadder to me, is that my kids will never know what a wonderful Grandfather they had.

He taught me that skin color doesn't matter, he taught me that gender doesn't matter, he taught me that sexual orientation doesn't matter. My dad was a seventh grade school teacher, and I have to hope, that the same qualities he worked so hard to teach me all my life, were passed on to his students.

Truly he was a man among men, and he was the best person I've ever known.