What are your happiest memories with your father?
I was thinking about that last night. It’s the third anniversary of my dad’s passing, and I was trying to remember what *really* mattered, now that the dust is starting to settle.
What remains, after all these years, from all the hoopla, details, daily happenings?
What remained, for me at least, are the times I had my dad’s attention; when I felt he was really present, and loving:
1. The “hand game” he used to play with me when I was a preschooler (pretending his hand was a stool I’d sit on, and then suddenly the stool would “break”!)
2. Our trips to “shomaal” — the banks of the Caspian Sea in north of Iran, pictured.
3. The evenings he would sit outside our house while I rode my bicycle.
4. That one time he cooked us a stew when my mom was traveling — he called it “man-daraavordi” stew, or “made up” stew… we had no idea what it was, and there was no rice, but we laughed our way through eating it!
I want this to be a guide for me with my son, Issa.
Routines, and eating vegetables, and limiting screen time, and this and that — are all important. But they PALE in comparison to the REAL thing: creating a warm, loving environment — or, at least, moments.

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