I was driving my mom home from a daunting chemotherapy session. I was a novice at to the whole driving experience, and not fond of what chemotherapy was doing to her either. My knuckles were white on the wheel. She touched my hand and said, "You have no idea what it's like to know you may never be able to drive down a road like this and look at such beautiful trees again." I suppose I didn't.
Driving home from my cross country hotel tour today, I watched the breathtaking landscape pass me by. I thought about what she said to me as I drank up the scenery... and I thought to myself, "what a wonderful world."

My father brought a CD with this song on it home one day. He sat my younger sister and I down, and made us listen to it. I did, with the cynicism of fourteen, "That's good, dad, but it's really corny!" But I really liked it, I did, it was my duty to play the teenager. To be too cool for everything, especially emotions. And my pride kept me from ever admitting that I actually liked the song, just as it kept me from ever admitting that I actually liked the tuna casserole my mother made after the night I decided to pretend that I didn't, just to be contrary. Ah, what we put our parents through. My dad would play it, I'd sigh, perhaps I would roll my eyes, but would listen with a smile once no one was looking.

I can no longer pretend to listen to this song unmoved.
That is because I can't listen to it anymore without crying.
We played it at his funeral, along with Butterfly Kisses that he said reminded him of us. The farthest I can ever make it...is here:

I see friends shaking hands
Saying How do you do
They're really saying
I love you

Because it's my dad saying "I love you." Always.