A Belated Happy Father's Day

My dad looking out at the Prague skyline back in 2010

When I was a kid, every once in awhile on a clear summer night, my dad would pull his binoculars out from the top shelf of the hallway closet and drag me and my brothers outside to look at passing comets. He showed me how to spot Venus and Orion, and to use the Big Dipper to find the North Star. On our family road trips across western Canada, in hushed tones he would point out deer, elk and even moose wandering along the side of the road. I remember one time when I was about ten, we watched a thunderstorm together from our garage, just the two of us, and he taught me how to judge the distance of a storm by counting from the lightening to the thunder.

I was the only daughter in a family of two boys, but he never talked down to me or assumed I wouldn't care about something. He passed on knowledge about the world that made me feel special and important for sharing in it.

So thank you, dad, for helping me to become the person who stops and notices, rather than the one who rushes busily past. Thank you for making me realise one pointing finger and one soft-spoken word at a time that the world deserves to be explored, enjoyed and respected.