A happy Christmas spirit
Jacqueline Miller and family, Ridgefield
Our dad loved Christmas. It was always right up there with fishing and cigars. He loved it when our family made a tradition of getting together on that day for eating and fun presents.
We took turns going either to Hood River, Albany, Tigard or to our place in Ridgefield every year.
The first Christmas after he passed away (on the beach of the Rogue River while pulling in a big salmon), we all missed him terribly. But afterwords we compared pictures and found that one had a strange white “whispy”-looking shape seemingly floating above and behind one of our group pictures.
We jokingly said, “Oh, it’s just Daddy. He couldn’t miss the party.”
The second year, we were surprised to see it happen again, but this time with a different house, camera and picture taker. This somehow happy event occurred every Christmas for the first 10 years our dad was gone, always in a different house, with a different camera and photographer. We came to expect it and to look forward to it.
Our mother said, “If there could be one day when he could come back it would be Christmas.”
After 10 years he appeared no more. We still miss him (it has been 43 years) and have to wonder, why did he end it?
Well, I like to think that he is just “gone fishing” and he is still trying to pull in that big one.
