Sunflowers.

I love sunflowers.  I might not let them take over my garden like some of my awesome friends, but I appreciate these happy harbingers of autumn.  As I ran past countless clumps of sunflowers on my run this morning, I remembered another morning 3 years ago when I took these pictures.

I also took this picture that same morning.

I took them as I drove out of my neighborhood on the way to the care center that would be my dad's home until a month and a half ago.  I just read the post and realized: it has been exactly 3 years and one day.

I can't see sunflowers this year without remembering taking these pictures and thinking of him going to live in that place. I didn't love him living there, but it was what had to happen.  I'm glad he isn't living there anymore.  I think about him a lot lately.  Any older gentleman of a certain height with a mustache suddenly becomes him.  I had to resist turning around and looking back at a guy in a car that I passed on today's run.  He would have thought I was being snotty because he was parked too far onto the sidewalk, but it would have been because I was checking that he didn't have my dad's face on him. 

I didn't look because I didn't want to be disappointed when it wasn't him.  I know I won't see him again in this life, but knowing that hasn't stopped me from looking.