It smells like summer

Well I am back. Finished Family Expo, and returning from Cape Breton after the loss of my father. I will miss my father everyday for the rest of my life, he was one of the good guys. I do take solace in the fact that the smells of summer bring back so many happy memories of him. My father was sick for almost six months during which he was in bed for almost 4 months. Before this, he was an active senior - he loved to garden, take morning walks along the Sydney River, mow the lawn, or at least in the last few years tell people how to mow his lawn. He loved the way his property looked in the summer, all decked out in blossoms, snowballs and lilacs. The smell of over an acre of fresh mowed grass, and the fragrances of the flowers, saw his chest burst with pride. He was born in Westmount in 1924 and lived in a farm house there until it burned down when he was 10 or 11. His sister and brother spent the winter months of that year with families in the community, while my father bunked into the barn with his parents for a winter they wouldn't soon forget. The community then built them a new house in the spring and he would see his father and mother die in that home and eventually raise his family in chez Morrison. On Monday of last week, he arrived via ambulance to his birthplace. Struggling to breath the whole journey, he then arrived to his home. Exhausted from lack of sleep, weakened by the past six months of fighting for his life, the attendant brought his bed around to the front door of his home. The smells and colors that day where spiritual. He opened his eyes wide and took it all in. I don't think he was ever ready to stop fighting or as they say "meet his maker" but he knew he was in the only paradise he had ever known - his home. He died 12 hours later in his sleep. That was just one day in his life, I will remember picking cherries in August, late night barbecues, days gone by stories told on the front deck . . . the smells of summer - here for such a short time and do we really ever appreciate them as much as we should? Do you live your life to fullest?