A Visit From Daddooooo

I'm reading the Bible as literature this month.  My father, Daddooooo, read the Bible as Scripture and as literature and as history throughout his life.  Today, though he's been dead for more than a decade, he was by my side.

My professor mentioned Gilgamesh and I reread the note I found when I opened this Bible.

First, one must decipher his handwriting, of which this is a rather elegant example

MEMO from HERBERT  (10/20/94)

AKA Dad & Daddooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Memory & opportunity 

arrived together.

SO - Here they are!!

Plus "Gilgamesh," yours 

to keep.

          Love

                       Dad.

Yes, there is a period after Dad. 

I never called him Dad - either Herb or Daddy - so I suppose Dad is how he thought of himself.

I'm having these thoughts more often, as I realize that I am now as old as my parents were when I began paying attention to them as people as well as parents.

But that's the easy part to figure out.  

The coincidental arrival of memory and opportunity must mean that he remembered to return my Bible while he was looking at it and had time to take it to the post office.  

I'm not sure that kind of memory lapse resonated with me in quite the same way in 1994 as it does today.  It's the flip side of Why am I standing here? and that didn't happen to me in 1994.

I don't know what happened to the "Gilgamesh."

I do know that I smiled a lot all day thinking about it, though.

He was often a difficult man when he was in the world, 

but there were times when he was just sublime. 

This afternoon was one of those times.