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One year ago today, my father passed away. I called my mom today and we both couldn’t believe that it has only been that long. This past year has just flown by.

I am who I am largely because of my dad. He was a man who worked hard to provide for his family, he enjoyed a good laugh and never had a problem speaking his mind. He loved his Buffalo Bills and would always want to talk about a recent game if I called him during the season. The picture below is from a birthday biplane ride over Niagara wine country that my siblings and I got for him. It’s not something that he would have ever considered spending money on for himself.

Wally in a biplane

I also live where I do in part because of my father. When I was three or four years old, we lived in Overland Park. He worked for AT&T in KC for a couple of years and I had vague, fond memories of living here. I decided to come back and go to school at KU after we lived in New York during the rest of the time I was growing up. On one of his visits out here, he was amazed by all the wild sunflowers growing around the area. He asked me once to send him some seed heads so he could plant some in Buffalo. I’m not sure if I ever got around to doing that.

September 15th Sunflower

A few months back I planted some sunflower seeds, not expecting them to do anything, since it was kind of late to be planting flowers. But at the time, I was thinking of that time my dad asked me for seeds. Two sprouted next to each other in the front of our house and this one (above) is the one that survived. Today is the first day that the petals have really opened up wide and you can see the seeds inside start to mature. A lot of things remind me of him from time to time; people playing golf, an old green Camry, and from now on – sunflowers in September.