The Last Leg of the Journey…
This one winds through old slides, fading corners of memory, diesel-heated rooms, dirt roads, and Coleman lanterns. It circles through wild Alaskan landscapes and quieter domestic scenes, through laughter, grit, and everything in between.
These stories—these images—may be uneven and out of order. Some are vivid, others softened by time. But together, they’ve helped me see not just where we lived, but how we lived.
Thanks for walking this road with me.
Following the path to the cabin
Final Journey
My dad died suddenly while walking alone down the path to his beloved cabin.
When I heard where and how he had passed, I felt a profound sense of him having come home.
He had spent the last 30 years of his life with his new family. While the desire may have been there to maintain ties to both of his families, it was a goal that ultimately proved elusive. By the time he passed away, he was another family’s father, grandfather, husband.
Time and distance had taken their toll.
At his memorial service, held at the cabin, I didn’t speak. I didn’t offer any remembrances. I felt like a distant uncle had passed away.
For most of my adult life outside Alaska, whenever I told people where I was from, I was met with a kind of wonder. Eyes would widen. Questions would follow. I became a novelty—they knew someone from Alaska!
People asked about my childhood: what it was like, what had possessed my parents to uproot and move there in 1956, and why I hadn’t gone back.
Growing up in Alaska carried a certain romanticism that intrigued people. And in telling them about it, I was often reliving it. It had been an exciting and unique childhood. I hadn’t lost it.
But I now realize I had lost something.
My parents’ divorce, my father’s remarriage, and my mother’s early death had the effect of erasing the emotions—the joy and wonder of my childhood. There was no longer a shared connection to help keep those memories alive.
But as I journeyed through the slides, those feelings started flowing back.
I felt as if I’d reclaimed something that had gone missing a while ago.
While the emotional aspects of this story could probably be analyzed ’til the cows come home (had to quote my grandmother there), one of the benefits of getting older (58) is realizing… I don’t need to anymore.
I’ve reached an age where I mostly accept life as it is.
I may not have liked all of it—but nothing and no one is exactly as we wish them to be. And thank God for that. Thank God for our imperfect parents, our imperfect spouses, siblings, children—and selves.
It’s the imperfect that allows us to be fully human.
This blog is a thank you.
A tribute.
A quiet homage to my dad—
aka John, Jonathon Joe, father, grandfather, husband, photographer, adventurer, homebody, builder, mechanic, tinkerer, avid reader, lover of nature, believer of the odd, traveler, sailor, volunteer, conversationalist, loner, soft-hearted, distant, walker, letter writer…
Imperfect fellow traveler.
Evening
