I never asked him was he proud of me?

My Dad: Harvey Manning, climber, writer, environmentalist and father.

A little over two months since my father passed away, seems like forever then again I can't believe it has even happened. It is all true what others have said and gone through before me. There are all those first, you have to make it through. Even when you make through those there are time when I think, oh he would like that book or he would find this interesting. And he would, even though he is gone, his spirit still is within me and he is still my dad and I still miss him. He didn't talk a lot, hated the phone, would only pick it up if no one else was around and that was to stop the ringing. We never talked about deep things. We talked about the birds we had seen, how the animals were doing, good shows on TV. Before I left to move up here on his 80th birthday it was mother, him and I and we actually sat out on the deck and talked. About their trips, our trips, about how we were both drunks but didn't drink anymore. It was the last time I saw him and the best conversation I had had with him in years.

Was he proud of me? I am sure he was, I wish I had finished this novel and was able to send it too him for him to read. I did give him one chapter to read and his praise of it was a lasting gift to me. Did I do anything tremendous for him to be proud. I visited him. I talked to him. I forgave him and asked him for forgiveness. So did I accomplish anything while he was alive to make him proud. I suppose, because I loved him and he me.

Anyway if you have someone's loves that is always enough, don't you think?



Here are a couple of pictures when he and my mother were climbing in the Canadian Rockies. What amazing parents I have.

Here they are in a hut above Lake Louise in 1950. They were freezing because there was no wood or heat.

Here he is on top of some peak, man I know so little about his climbing days