“you got a doo goin on!” my dad would’ve said, seeing this picture.

He would always make some comment like that when my hair was extra wild.

I took this picture on my birthday, last Friday. As I let the dogs out that morning the first thing I saw was this tree. As if it had bloomed over night, just for me.

We planted this tree two years ago a few days after my dad died. He loved planting trees.

Yesterday I was walking around downtown and passed a garden shop window that had this quote:

“to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”-Audrey Hepburn

I sense my dad’s presence all the time…in quotes like this, in the trees blooming on my birthday, in comments that my brother or my mom say; in how I introduce myself to people who knew my dad. I’m reminded of how much I’m like him, in the things I say and do, in the way that I am.

I miss sharing moments with him like the first snowfall, or a good thunderstorm, gazing on a beautiful mountain view, or a joke so funny he’d cry laughing.

Yesterday was the two year anniversary. We celebrated his life as he would’ve wanted us to.  And for the ability to do that, I give thanks.