A Dad's Letter to His Daughters

Love is an amazing measure

You can love many people

But you will never love two people in the exact same way

Each measure of love is unique to that individual

It should not be measured in how much or how little

It should simply be measured by that you do love

The main aspects of love are appreciation and caring

Combined it will always calculate you a unique measure of love

You only need one or the other, both are not required. But love is more fulfilling if both are present.

Love can be extended to anyone in your life; near, distant, familiar or even obscure.

If people love you, do you have to love them back? If you love someone, do they have to love you back?

No. Love shared by two people are always at two different measures.

You may love your friend enough to think of them as your best friend. That friend may love you back, but they may refer to another as their best friend.

Familiarity with someone should not be confused with love, unless that familiarity brings appreciation and or caring.

Infatuation is not love, not yet. More than likely though this is a transient or temporary love that could potentially dissipate to familiarity. But infatuation could also potentially grow into a very high measure of love.

You never know.

But when someone tells you they are “in love with you”, understand that their love for you is an infatuation.

People who truly love you do not say “in” or “out”.  They simply do love you.

So what is “romantic love”?

This is the most rewarding love, when shared with another.

This is the cruelest love, when the measures of love between two people differ significantly.

Romantic love goes beyond caring and appreciation – although caring and appreciation are the foundation of all loves.

Romantic love often extends to include passion, desire, commitment, and then contentment.

Romantic love most often begins as infatuation, which entwines the passion and desire.

This is the most dangerous phase of love.

This is the phase of love that requires the most courage.

This is also the phase of love that requires the most caution.

Because, as I said earlier, infatuation can end as quickly as it begins.

And should the end of infatuation occur for the other party before it occurs for you, the pain can be devastating.

And should the end of infatuation occur for you before the other party, I urge you be honest and polite as you dismiss it. Be kind.

But be cautions of the desire and the passion you feel in this early state. Acting to aggressively may well have very severe penalties.

I implore you as someone who loves you and wants only the best for you, that when you feel the strong passions and desires of infatuation, please employ patience and restraint. Not forever. But until you at least gain an understanding of how transient – how temporary or how potential the prospect of feeling commitment and contentment from this love appears to be.

Do not waste your passion and your desire on temporary infatuation. It is dangerous. And potentially costly.

You will know love when you feel it.

And you will recognize romantic love when it blossoms from infatuation.

And you will know when infatuation ends

And you will know when true love takes over as you desire to commit to that love and quite content to do so.

Loves will come.

And loves will go.

Some will pass quickly.

Others will endure a lifetime.

It is important to be honest with those that you love about your love

But it is even more important – and a prerequisite to your own happiness – that you be honest with yourself about your love for others.

Pitching to Towering Redheads

This story is true, I swear it's true, especially the parts I made up.

My daughters' fast pitch team played a tournament in middle Michigan last weekend.

In the first game of the tournament, they faced their toughest challenge in a team wearing red jerseys. These girls were at the older end of the age bracket with fourteen and fifteen year old girls. Our team was a year or two younger.

Our team, the Wildcats, were wearing their most intimidating black uniforms – with Wildcats scripted in bright red across the front.

Our starting pitcher Chantel is a very good pitcher. She throws fast and accurate. She is very effective. On this day though Chantel did very well to hold the opposition to only four runs in three innings.

In the fourth inning, my eldest daughter Alannah came in to pitch. She was throwing very well too, but runners were still getting on base. With bases loaded, a young lady stepped to the plate who towered above all the other players. She was as strong as she was tall. She had curly red hair and freckles that almost covered a sneer of confidence that would make Elvis look insecure.

Alannah threw her best pitches at her, but the third pitch caught too much of the plate and this young lady smashed it as hard and as long and as far as I have ever seen a ball hit in this division. The outfield fence sat 300 feet away from home plate, and this young lady hit the ball to that fence on one bounce.

She crossed home plate before our talented outfielders could even get the ball back into the infield. She crossed the plate to the salute of high fives from the three others that crossed before her.

Even though Alannah was pitching so well, she had just given up her first grand slam.

Our second game was rained out. We were drenched in the downpour racing for our cars.

Driving home, as Ashley-Rae slept in the backseat, Alannah and I discussed the event of the Grand Slam and the towering powerful young lady who hit it.

"I threw her my best stuff, Dad"

"Yes, and I never saw a softball fly so far", I replied. "Was the ball still round when they finally threw it back to you?"

"Shut up Dad"

Alannah sat quiet for a minute.

"Sometimes, Alannah, you can't strike everybody out", I finally said breaking the silence. "She hit Chantel pretty hard too".

"So what do you do then? The next time I face her. What do I do? Do I walk her?"

"I wouldn't waste the energy of throwing her four pitches", I replied. "I'd hit her".

"Dad, you're not supposed to say that", replied Alannah, a glare of slight shock that I would even suggest such a thing"

"Yup, maybe so. But I would hit her. I might say 'I'm sorry after. And if she came up again, I would say 'you know the drill', and I would hit her again.

Alannah kept looking at me.

"Does she respect you right now?" I asked.

"No"

"She will after you peg her in the butt a few times with a fastball"

That was all that was said.

The next day when we arrived at the park to play the game rained out the night before, Alannah joked with a couple of her team mates about what we talked about. She told Chantel, the starting pitcher, she told Maddie the third baseman, and she told Lilly who catches. And I guess they discussed it, and in the end it sounds like they all agreed.

But what were the odds they would even play that team again?

Well, those odds were much better than any of us suspected. 

Our Wildcat girls in black uniforms went on to win their next three games. And the Gold Medal game was now set for 8:30 PM under the lights of the main diamond. Their opponent of course was the same red uniformed team that had beaten them the night before. And of course the towering redheaded left-handed batter.

Chantel had pitched a lot that day, and she had pitched very well. But that was enough for one day, so Coach Sue gave Alannah the mound to start the game.

I must say, this was the most motivated that I had ever seen Alannah pitch. She threw her whole body through the pitch, and let out a grunt as she released the ball that was louder than any grunt ever grunted by Monica Seles. Her accuracy was dead on, and her velocity was as fast as I had ever seen her. Her eyes were focused and concentrated. And with each pitch she gained a little bit more of a confident sneer that would make Elvis look insecure.

She held her own with that red uniformed team. She held them off. And the second inning, who led off, but the towering redhead. Alannah's eyes met the sneering redhead's. And Alannah sneered right back at her.

Lilly who was catching behind the plate, winked at Alannah through her mask and yelled to the fielders, "Here we go!".

And then, with all her might she fired her first pitch at the powerful left-handed batter.

"Strike!" yelled the umpire as he pointed a strike call with his finger. The pitch came in hard and fast and made the redhead back off the plate, but it caught just the black edge of the plate for a strike.

The ball hit Lilly's mitt with a loud snap.

The redhead looked at Alannah, who simply sneered larger.

The next pitch came in even harder and even more inside forcing the redhead to back away to dodge the ball, but she swung the bat in self-defence.

"Strike TWO" yelled the umpire.

Alannah sneered even harder at the redhead. The redhead didn't sneer back.

"Let's get her Alannah!" shouted Lilly.

The next pitch came in even faster, this time at the redhead's helmet-protected noggin. The redhead fell to the dirt to avoid the pitch.

"BALL" screamed the Ump. "One ball two strikes ladies".

Lilly punched her mitt as Alannah stared in. Her sneer glaring even more confidently now.

Now, Alannah had two strikes on her. And in my mind as I watched from the stands, I thought to myself "Oh my goodness, she's going to strike her out".

This time when Alannah uncoiled with her pitch, she wasn't looking at Lilly's glove. She was looking at the redhead. And as the pitch came in with all the strength that Alannah could muster, all the redhead could do was turn away. And that's when Alannah's fastball caught the redhead dead square in the right buttocks.

The redhead dropped her bat and lumbered to first, rubbing her butt as she did.

"Sorry!" Alannah said to the redhead – her sneer still sneering.

After the game, as Alannah was showing me her silver medal, I asked her about the redhead.

"You almost struck her out" I said. "You had two strikes on her?"

"I did?"

"Yes, I was sure you were going to get her"

"I did, Dad. But she wouldn't stand still. I had to chase her all over the batter's box to do it!"

God’s Miraculous Shot

It is remarkable to realize that for the vastness that can only be described today as infinity, how incredible this tiny little dot in the universe our planet Earth truly is.

The perfect blue of a sky on a warm spring day. The warmth of the sun in a cool breeze. The green of the grass, soft on the ground to cushion a bare foot.

All the pieces so perfectly crafted.

Even in a barren dessert there is the beauty of the reds and browns of the sands sculpted by the wind and baked by the sun.

Even in the middle of the vastest of oceans, the shades of the blues and rhythm of the waves dictated by the Moon some 238,860 miles above.

The caps of the world, more barren than the desserts comprised only of ice and snow, are beautiful in their lights and shadows.

Masterfully designed, perfectly crafted, brilliant in their inception, and flawless in execution.

The physicist will tell you that all of this is a result of extreme luck – the laws of motion and gravity and probability all calculated in one big bang 13.8 billion years ago.

The spiritualist will tell you that it is all God in every second of every flutter of a butterfly's wing. That this was all done for man, for man's benefit, and that the world did not even exist before man was here to experience it.

If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

"The vibration of the force of the fall would impact the atoms of the matter in the surrounding objects to cause an effect" would state the physicist.

"If it wasn't heard, then what does it matter?" would state the cleric.

Me? I think the answer lies someplace in the middle.

I think there is an intelligent creator, responsible for all that we know now.

But not sitting right above us, not involved in every nuance of every action.

Think of a very skilled billiards player, one who can sink all the balls on the table before missing.

His break is very important as he shoots the cue ball into the mass of balls on the other side of the table.

Yet he knows where to aim and how hard to hit and what type of spin to use to achieve the result – precisely planned but seemingly chaotic movement of the mass of balls all reacting to each other as they bump off each other and the rails of the table - to finally rest in a position.

Where the billiards player can now pick the right order to easily make each shot.

And he makes it look so easy.

The balls all go where he wants – but his impact is only the split second that the tip of his cue – a cue shaped and chalked to his design – hit's the white cue ball. Everything else results from that precise strike.

Think a golfer who needs to sink his golf ball in the hole that more than five football fields away, and he needs to do so striking that ball only three times to score an eagle.

Like the billiard player, the golfer only controls the result at that precise moment he strikes the ball. After that, the laws of physics take over.

And so, in that same fashion, it seems to me to be completely viable – that a grand intelligence – a deity if you wish – God by any name you choose – made the most miraculous shot when triggering that big bang – patient for the resulting billions of years – to see how that shot would work out – and is still playing out.

God looked at the Sun and said, "That's a beauty"

God looked at the Earth and said to himself "Nice shot. And I got the moon just right too".

God looked at Mars and maybe he said "crap, I overshot all the water to Earth".

Remember, all the balls are still in motion from that one shot almost 14 billion years before.

The result we will never know.

The original intention and target of that shot, we will never know.

But we have and will continue to derive answers that for now satisfy our desire to know a truth.

Maybe there is still a big asteroid that was set in motion in that same shot that is out there still spinning it's way around the gravity pulls of other planets and suns in other surrounding solar systems not yet on the final swing towards striking Earth – and resulting in that miraculous shot where some of the oxygen and water and particles that would comprise life – would then also wind up on Mars afterward.

And then God, who had been waiting 14 billion years to see his result – would give a little shriek of joy and high five himself, and confirm to himself yet again ...

"I love this game".

 

 

Someplace Between Hollywood and Pyongyang

Rogen and Jong-un review script notes between tokes.

This recent debacle between North Korea and Sony Entertainment over what looks like a B movie that entertains the plot of assassinating North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has really crossed so many boundaries of discussion, it's hard to pick one.

Cyber-terrorism by hackers who are supposedly members of North Korean elite squad of IP savvy ninjas who cannot only break into a poorly secured network infrastructure of a Japanese gadget company who bought Columbia Pictures to get into the Hollywood business.

How they did it?

Not interested. They waved their fingers over a keyboard at a Linux prompt and magically found themselves at the root drive of all evil.

What they leaked that embarrassed Sony Entertainment executives?

Not Interested. These are Hollywood executives, did you expect any sense of appropriate decorum?

How the now never-to-be-released Seth Rogen movie insulted the regime, or maybe only Dennis Rodman?

And the Dennis Rodman connection still seems to defy the law of socio-political physics.

The first thing that came to my mind as this story broke last week and continued to escalate, was envisioning the author - perpetual stoner Seth Rogen - continually replying to questions and comments from Sony, the media, and the Homeland Security boys in black suites and sunglasses - and likely every friend Rogen ever had with the same answer that is the anthem of every comedian who went too far with a joke or a gag:

"It's only a joke".

When the conversation elevated to the movie being pulled from four major movie chains in the United States after the North Korean Cyber Ninja's eluded to an ability to somehow blow up every theatre that projected the mocked-up Kim Jong-un on its silver screen, then escalated to the movie not being released, and the United States finding itself suddenly involved investigating potential acts of terrorism based on these threats.

"It's only a joke".

This answer implies that no one is ever allowed to be offended by a comedian, as though the joke is a sacred cow not to be judged for appropriateness, but only by how funny it is.

And funny is such a subjective scale. Believe me, people remind me of this on a daily basis.

The decision not to show the movie in theatres was made by the theatre owners. In their defense, I believe it was the responsible decision, no matter how unlikely the realization of such threats may be.

The decision to pull the movie from being released was made by Sony Pictures. This is a business after all, and while it may sound heroic to some, releasing this movie was proving to risk their bottom line rather than show profit. Their stocks rose 3.68% in the twenty four hours following the announcement.

Here is the reality. Kim Jong-un, as cartoonish a buffoon as we westerners may believe him to be – a political reincarnation of a South Korean pseudo-musician Psy in a virtual loop of Gangnam Style, is still alive and the leader of contentious albeit isolated land smashed between China and South Korea with Japan just across the Sea of Japan.

And while other movies have mocked and even killed off living heads of state in the past – as far back as Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator from the days before The United States even considered diving into World War II, none of those movie's premise was the direct order of a government to assassinate the offending leader. They didn't even try to parody this leader. Nor change his name. The leader is Kim Jong-un.

And the problem with such ruthless dictators who squash human rights on a daily basis and live in luxury while the population he reigns over is that they just don't have a sense of humor. They certainly can't appreciate a good parody, let alone a poor one likely conceived between tokes.

"But really, it's only a joke".

Joke or not, political affiliations aside, the taste of Rogen's joke is quite questionable.

"Pulling this movie flies in the face of freedom of speech. It reeks of censorship".

Now look. As Voltaire may or may not have said, "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it". Well, maybe not to my death, but at least until somebody complains about me.

The fact is, there is no global belief in free speech. Clearly not in North Korea. And when you release a movie for the world to see, you better be ready for the world's opinion.

Because, I tell my daughters several times a week:

You have the freedom to express yourself, and I will stand by you when you do. But that freedom is not intended to protect you from the repercussions of your hurtful stupidity.

And this was just plain stupidity. Hell, damn near bullying.

Try explaining to your twelve year old daughter who sees insults flying on Instagram everyday why its not okay for kids to make fun of an tease other kids in a YouTube video, but it's absolutely fine for a stoner jackass to write a simpleton story about how funny it is to kill another person – a real person who is still alive – and then explain how a major movie studio would see this as entertainment to release to be seen worldwide.

Seems kind of hypocritical – don't you think? Even if the target of the joke appears to be one of the most tyrannical and corrupt leaders currently in power at the time.

If you want to mock an easy target like Kim Jong-un, go for it.

But why should it surprise anybody that the Galapagos-like isolation that this leader contains his countrymen under would have enough peek-holes through his iron curtain to see this film coming. Maybe Dennis Rodman told him, over a beer …

"Dude, you should see this kick as movie they're making about you".

Maybe it was one of his Ninja cyber-punk hackers looking to impress his leader by sending him link to the movie trailer that's been out since Halloween. The subject of the email probably stated "check this out" and in the body of the email the ninja might have stated something like …

"The actor who portrays you doesn't come close to capturing the greatness of your character"

Then below that link is another link to the video about the guy telling the dog he fed his steak to the cat instead.

I can't get enough of that video either.

To me, this is the perfect collision between the two furthest poles on the spectrum of reality: Hollywood and Pyongyang.

And so far Pyongyang is winning.

This isn't about being North Korean and defending your leader, even if done so with a pistol to your head.

And this isn't about being American, and holding the position that you can do anything you want to and how dare anybody challenge you claiming such a stance as "my God-given right as an American".

Wait, yes it is. It's about both these perspectives.

Well, say what you want. You have the right.

But watch out for those that disagree, because they have the right to be pissed off at you for saying it.

But the worst outcome of this circus of the stars is yet to play out.

Because you know, you just know, that Rogen is likely already halfway through writing the screen play about what he perceives to be the most talented writer in Hollywood starting a nuclear war over the brilliant script he wrote about a pompous boy-dictator ruling over the land of make-believe.

And I wouldn't mind receiving a royalty check for that idea.

The Time Before This Time

Scientists estimate that the big bang – the cosmic event that scientists speculate marks the beginning of our universe – happened some 13.7 billion years ago.

When considering values in the billions – I find the need to exact to the additional seven tenths of a billion quite pretentious.

But regardless, the question remains – in a universe that is supposedly endless – what existed before the big bang occurred?


My understanding – one of only a very simple and uneducated layman to be sure – is that everything that existed in the universe was sucked in by an unimaginable force of gravity into the space that a pea would occupy, and then at its ultimate limit – exploded everything encapsulated in that small space all across the universe – in a gaseous molten form that when it finally came to cool enough to form shapes filled our universe with the orb like masses that we see today.

So the theory goes anyway.

But what was that final period like of the prior universe? When everything was being sucked in? If things were spread as far and wide today – it must have taken at least a million years to collapse?

Think of today – light from neighboring stars taking thousands of years to reach Earth. At the speed of light. To suggest that the collapse happened quickly would mean that the speed of light is not the fastest speed there is.

Or perhaps it's that speed which slows down time, like Einstein postulated. So the million year collapse seemed to happen in an instant.

Seemed like an instant? To who?

These ideas are as staggering to conceptualize in our limited human brains as the concept that the universe is endless.

Perhaps it was not the entire universe that was sucked in – perhaps it was only a galaxy. A collection of solar systems – much like we have today. Could the universe before the big bang at first glance really be that much different than this one that exists in this universal collection of time?

If there was an after, then there had to be a before. Right?

And where did all that stuff come from that exploded into the universe?

That piece of rock, lying there in your garden, where did it really come from. Originally?

And then what about all the pieces of life? This consciousness that has to exist to experience what there is? Did all these pieces, the DNAs of life that are needed to spark an existence – did they all arrive here with all the other matter that congealed into this blob of matter that spun itself around our sun to become earth?

Did they exist before us? Before the bang? Snuffed out as the universe collapsed? Gathered up as part of that gigantic collection of matter that compressed and exploded all over again? If so, then these pieces of life should be all over the universe – planted - tossed out from the big bang like a gardener tossing wildflower seeds into the loose soil in hopes some of it will catch and grow?

The truth is that all we can truly do is speculate on all these things and try, using mathematic and scientific laws that may not even have been applicable before or during that bang.

'We' of course meaning people much smarter than me.

But we are all free to consider, to speculate, to hypothesize.

That big bang was like a reboot of all existence.

A natural cosmic cycle of happenings that occur over and over and over again?

Like searching through the square root of pie looking for the sequence in decimal places to finally start recurring, albeit we haven't found it yet. But it's there. And then we will start looking for the place where it started again after sequence is defined.

Maybe the square root of pie is simply a clue left behind.

Because if you stop and think about it – everything really stems from a circle. Repeating, rotating, orbiting, and spinning start and finish that even though it repeats it never starts or ends.

If this is the case – then the same must be true of our universe, it simply goes round and round inside the blob-ish sphere-ish orb that is our universal boundary?

But of that's the case, what exists on the other side of that boundary?

Time Enough For Me

Again another summer is rolling into our little burg on the cusp both Canada and the United States – nestled into a quiet corner along the bordering Detroit River.

The breeze is warmer each morning as I sit on the back deck by the pool listening to the water flow around the pools edge, the ever so gentle hum of the pump that moves it.

And of course, my faithful black lab Suzy, yet another year older, laying on the deck at my feet.

The coffee tastes great this morning, seemingly the perfect complement to the sounds of the birds in the neighborhood as they execute their morning routines.

Life is very busy right now. Almost too busy. Almost. My days are filled with exciting work on interesting projects. Those days flow into the night as I continue my work from home, between two teenage girls travel ball team practices and tournaments, and the chores that come from simply being a homeowner and a father.

I have been too busy to write, and my head to full of the information I need for work, and information I need for home and the girls ball teams, too full to make room for interesting things to write about here.

There's just so much going on.

But this weekend is as calm as they will get this weekend.

Sure, there is still some grass to cut and some weeds to whip, and both girls will have practices over the next two days, and yeas, my laptop will come out of my bag and I will put some of my attention to the backlog of tasks outstanding from the current project at work.

But other than that, the weekend is my own.

But then there is a birthday party sleep over event that Alannah will attend at a friends house, and she will need to be driven to and back at some point. And there is laundry and kitchen tasks outstanding, and the house could use a good vacuuming. But other than that, my time is my own.

Time, what time is it now? Alannah's practice starts in twenty minutes. Damn. I still need to shower and shave and stop to put gas in the car. I'd better think about going.

But after that – it's only a three hour practice today – after that the day is mine – aside from the chores and the driving and the project I need to work on.

The day is mine. All mine.

Almost.

Wildcats and Turtles and Disharmonous Harmony

Here we sit at the middle of January, and all that is green is buried in white.

The skies filled with those big grey and purple clouds that hang low packed with snow.

Sometimes it falls. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes I shovel it. Sometimes I wait for next week’s thaw to clear the laneway for me. 

But summer ball is right around the corner.

Yes, it’s a very wide corner still but it’s there on the horizon’s horizon.

This season will be very exciting as both Alannah and Ashley-Rae are playing at even higher levels, both playing on traveling rep teams here in the Windsor area.

But this year they play on different teams under different clubs. Alannah will be playing for a bantam team of girls born in 2001. She is playing for the Wildcats.

Ashley-Rae will be playing for the Squirt team of girls born in 2002. She will still be playing for the Athletics of the Turtle Club, on the same team that Alannah played on last year but is now too old.

While the Wildcats and Turtle Club share a mutual need for diplomatic mutual gain, the fact is these two clubs don’t like each other. And one of her coaches this year coached another team from yet another club Alannah played against last year.

And that club didn’t like the Turtle Club either.

None of these clubs like each other – but years of competition mean that many of these coaches and players have spent time in more than just one of the clubs.

It’s likely very common from community to community, rivalries like these. They are great as long as they don’t get personal.

So far so good.

But it is extremely interesting to me, the observer I seem to have retired to. Seeing both sides, seeing both styles both so completely different despite their undeniable similarity. Like two competing churches each searching for the more perfect doctrine. Both reading from the same book and interpreting the same things differently.

It’s fun.

Ashley-Rae’s team has three of my players from my Gold ’99 team from last summer. Now I’m just a dad but I’m proud of each one of them. Now they join forces with the girls that Alannah left behind.

The other girls from Alannah’s team that moved on because their age moved them up to Bantam now play on the same Wildcat Alannah does. Great kids. Great parents. So I am not so alone now straddling the Wildcat – Turtle Club line. Although the Athletics team parents seem like extended family to me.

The best of the best.

So I am looking forward to watching both teams.

They have both been practicing since the summers end. In different elementary schools in the same way, doing different things looking for the same results.

Both managers are also excellent. One a wily old veteran of the coaching circle – the other a young woman who’s extensive and impressive player career and coaching experience has now culminated to her first  managing position.

I'm very happy that both girls have such great leadership to play for.

Yet so similarly different.

Just like Wildcats and Turtles.

A Chat with Dad

In my first book, Sowing My Father's Garden, I have this amazing new ability to simply call up my long deceased Father on a screen and hold conversations with an artificial simulation of him.

I didn't really plan to write this story this way. When I came up with the concept, it simply sounded like a cool little aspect to the story.

But after I wrote the first interaction with my Dad, it took me a long time in the story before I went back to it. It was just too real.

In the story, I find my main character to be in a position where he (he who is me) getting advice from a lot of people. But no matter how much I respected the others feeding me their insight and opinion, I found that I still had to go back in the story and run it past my artificial Dad.

And it felt good to me, writing these conversations, these pretend dialogues with the man I respected more than any other in my life, focusing on my memories of every little nuance about his mannerisms, his speech cadence, his sincerity, and how he always balanced his rational with humor. How thoughtful he was, and how he could dissect the simplest idea to find it's real intention and meaning.

And I realized how much I really truly miss him. I didn't really know this until I delved into trying to resurrect him in this artificial simulation.

Below is that first excerpt from Sowing My Fathers Garden … where I discover inside this amazing network the Planter's Society had built, that my Father – the founder of this society – had been artificially modeled so that other members could "bounce things off him.

Tomorrow is Dad's birthday. He would have turned 81.

Ironically his birthday falls on a day we call Remembrance Day.

Happy Birthday Dad. You are indeed remembered.

14 – A chat with Dad I quietly re-entered the bedroom so as not to wake Anne as she was sleeping. I picked up the remote control and went to the front of the room where the video screen stood. I moved a comfortable chair to a location in front of the video screen, and worked my way through the menus back to the Angel flying into view. "Let me talk to my Dad, please." I said, just – if for nothing else – to see how smart this thing really is. "Certainly", responded the Angel. The screen went black. After a couple of seconds, a little orange glow appeared near the middle of the screen. As I looked closer, I could see the outline – the silhouette of a figure, lying on the couch, the orange dot grew brighter – then dimmed, and a puff of smoke drifted past. The dot then moved in a fashion to a lower position and stopped – as if set down in an ashtray. Even though the screen was nearly pitch black, I could still make the silhouette out to be my Dad. – laying on the couch in a pair a tennis shorts – a tee shirt on, laying on his side with one arm propping up his head. "Dad?" "I've been wondering when you would get around to coming to see me", said the silhouette.  "How was your flight?" "Great", I said. "How are Anne and my two granddaughters, Alex and Rae?" "They are great too". "I can't wait to see them". It was indeed my Dad's voice. Same professional speaking voices, a little tired, with a touch of gravel from smoking. "Dad, you quit smoking, remember?" "I started back up.", said the voice. The orange dot lifted into the air – grew brighter as it sat in front of the face of the silhouette, then grew dimmer. It landed to a position on the side of the silhouette's hip. Just like Dad did as he laid on the couch in the dark smoking and thinking. "So where do we start, then?", I asked the silhouette. "How about asking how I am?" "Okay, I'll bite, how are you ... Dad?" "Dead, pretty much." Said the silhouette, with a dead pan delivery of a joke. Just like Dad. "Yes, and I don't really find all this very amusing", I replied. "I'm kind of pissed off that Mom would let you be … well … reverse engineered I guess is the best way to say it." "Capiche", said the silhouette. "But I will say this, you sure do look and sound and act like my old man." "I told you, I hate the term 'old man'." And Dad did, too. I referred to him as my old man one time, he reached over and cuffed me good in the head. "At least you can't reach me now", I laughed, "And I'm too old for a whooping." "You would be surprised at what this thing can do", replied the silhouette. And for a second I considered he might be right. "I don't think I can let the girls see this … see you … this way. Do you understand?" "Not only do I understand, but I agree with you a hundred percent!" replied my digital silhouette of a father. "At least not yet … when they are older … that's why your mother agreed to put me in here." "So you have a pre-recorded message to play for them then?", I asked. "Not pre-recorded – but a script I guess you could say. Your mother made a collage of video clips for the girls to see, and some instructions for me to … well … show my best side to them. Some day they may want to meet me." "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it", I replied. "Do you have anything scripted to say to me? This is a lot of … shit … to grasp. I could use some guidance." I swore on purpose. I was never allowed to swear around my Mom or Dad. Not even as a young adult. "You mean 'Stuff', a lot of stuff to grasp." "Sorry, just testing you". "I know." The orange dot again drifted from the silhouette's hip to his face, grew brighter then dimmer, and another puff of smoke drifted across the screen. "The only advice that I have for you is to use your best judgment. These are very good people. They sincerely are trying to do the right things. They are trying to carry forward on a mission I left them with over twenty years ago." "I think I need a history lesson, Dad. How did all this come to be? Where did you get all the money to fund all of this? " "Tonight is not the night for a history lesson, kid. The Angel can tell you the history. She can probably play it back for you like a movie." .. there was a pause … then the silhouette continued .. "Yes, I just checked, and the Angel has the order and sequence of this to unveil to you all queued up, but not tonight, it's still too new to you, all this … shit." I laughed. That was my dad. "But this I must tell you. I am not the one who brought the wealth to this group. That was Abercrombie. John is a genius. He built all of this. I just provided … well … the inspiration I guess. That's why they wanted Mom to let them put me into this thing. So they could remember what they are here for." "Oh". "You are an invited member. This is not some family legacy left to you. This is serious stuff and you better treat it as such. What John has asked you to join is his – the Society's. What they expect of you is … well, a little bit of me. Got it?" "I got it." "Good." "Remember …." Said the silhouette. "The old man's always right", I said, beating him to the punch. "That's right". "I miss you Dad." "I know." The orange dot floated over to the silhouette's face, again grew brighter, then dimmer, then floated to the ashtray, the hand of the silhouette putting out the orange glowing dot as a puff of smoke again floated across the screen. "That's enough for tonight … we'll talk again tomorrow. G'night". And the silhouette got up from the couch and walked out of the picture. "G'night Dad".