Appleby's Journal

October 4, 2009 -- The first anniversary of my fathers death is Wednesday.  The hospice is having their annual Mass for those who died this month in the previous year on October 25 -- I am not on their list because I do not live in the USA, but Mama mentioned it to me the other day.  I cannot go because I cannot drive -- it takes a full day by train to get there and a full day to get home, and I do not have enough vacation days because of having to get a new job in June.

This is the last week I can say *last year at this time he was here.*

Last year at this time I was agonizing over whether to go to Road Atlanta, which was held the first weekend of October last year, which decision was made for me by a categorical refusal of all my friends (a couple of them blaming their wives) to pick me up at the airport or return me thereto.  (I have not been able to drive a car for most of my life, and do not understand the way some people seem to look on a friend begging a ride in the same light as they view a home invasion by drug gangs.)  As it turned out, this was the hand of God, as Daddy died the day after I would have returned home.

This year I attended that race and there were so many things I would have loved to discuss with Daddy -- particularly the first ever pole position for David Murry in the GT40 Ford of Robertson Racing -- which runs its team on a budget equal to what Audi spends on sandwiches, beating a field of Porsche, Ferrari, BMW and other foreign marques driven by guys of the highest quality and experience.  Daddy was a Ford man all his life and how he would have loved this!  I was comforted by my four days at RA because I have so many friends there and my country is so much more civil than the one in which I am now living.  Or perhaps I simply understand it better. 

I will be alone to celebrate Daddys life on the anniverary of his Going to Glory; after 12 years I still have no friends or companions here in Canada.  But I will spend the day looking over my photo albums and remembering the happy years.