Father's Day - June 2010

There are many of you who don’t know about the phenomenon I’m about to describe, but this is a story worth sharing. Jeff Tipton had only a couple of “sins” and one of them was his continued love of Marlboros. I kept asking him to quit, including after his cancer diagnosis, to which he responded, “What: are they gonna kill me?” He had a point, so he continued to enjoy his cigarettes while standing on the driveway outside of the garage.

Shortly after Jeff died, I began smelling cigarette smoke inside the house, yet no one had ever smoked inside, including Jeff. The smell was distinctive, but without the usual irritating effects that even the smallest whiff of burning tobacco usually brings to me. I had my hands full with Kate and my job and thought I was probably just being silly. One evening Dana called from Las Vegas to tell me that Jeff had “visited” her and her then-boyfriend in their home. Dana was in her kitchen and noticed the smell of a Marlboro coming from the doorway into the dining area directly next to her refrigerator, about six feet away from where she stood at the sink. Her boyfriend came in through the other door and asked incredulously, “Are you smoking?” They realized they were very aware of a presence in the dining room doorway, and the miraculously inoffensive smell of the lighted Marlboro didn’t fade away until they laughed, “It’s Jeff” aloud to one another. I later heard similar stories from a few close friends and relatives, and I continued to occasionally smell the smoke from time to time and house to house, but less and less frequently as the years passed.

Today, Kate, Dana, and I were in the living room getting ready to watch one of Kate’s favorite movies, “The Aristocats.” I had asked Kate if she remembered that Daddy would sing, “I’m Abraham Delacey Giuseppe Casey Thomas O’Malley, O’Malley the alley cat!” Kate frowned as she frequently does at the memory of her lost father and continued to watch the video. Within a minute or two, I began to smell cigarette smoke. The doors and windows had been closed against the strong breeze blowing across the bay since yesterday. I asked Dana if she smelled it, and initially, she couldn’t. Then, sitting up straighter on the sofa, she said, “Yes! I smell it now.” I went outside to the back deck looking around for the trespassing smoker, then out to the front sidewalk to find the smoking passerby. No one was there, and somewhat unsettlingly, there was not even a whiff of tobacco outdoors. Back inside, the smell was obvious once again. It was then that it occurred to me what day it is: Father’s Day. With all his girls together in the living room, watching a movie that he had sung along with for six years until eight years ago, Jeff had stopped by to check on us. Dana and I shared a smile; I held Kate closely as we watched Duchess and Thomas and the kittens work their way back to Paris and to Madame, who loved them so very, very much.

Happy Father’s Day to those fathers still here and to those fathers who visited ever so briefly but who have never really gone.