prescience

Prescience is a strange word. Sounds like precious. Well, prescience would be more precious if it could be controlled. But, in my experience...

having or showing knowledge of events before they take place, as in a prescient warning,

has never been something I can bring to bear before the fact. Probably just as well.

While I was painting the pastel of the Maine shore, and certainly while I was writing the particulars about how to build a clambake, I was thinking about my dad. With his 90th birthday coming in June and his age wearing him down, I could hear a growing distance in his voice each time I called home. I knew he'd enjoy the painting and perhaps recognize himself in the post as the bake master. But while I worked on it, that "precious" feeling stirred in my gut now and then. I tried hurling a "NO!" or two at it, as if wishing would make it so, but it wouldn't go away. As my sister said, his old heart finally gave up, and he died on Friday.

I could, of course, go on at some length about him because he was a great man and a wonderful dad, but I won't for now. I will say, however, that both he and my mother (who survives at almost 90, is quite the phenom in her own right, and might be the bravest person I'll ever know) hoped that the day will come when death is as respected as much as life and be allowed to be what it is. Nuff sed. They both make me wicked proud to be a Down Easter.

I mention my dad's death here for these reasons:

I owe him for who I am. Having him here made me who I am, and his absence will change me. Some of my creative self is in this blog, so I'd like to think it's a place he can be proud of and that he can always be found here.

Some of you have also recently used your blogs to mark the passing of the people who brought you here. It was a loving thing to do, and many of us were honored to help you carry the water.

My father, as they say, left his affairs in order, including writing his own obit for the newspaper. My mother says it's funny, and I'm sure it's modest, too. For my part, I think my description of a bake master is worth adding to his admirable list of accomplishments.