I still think often of the moment when my father died. It is not so heavy any longer. Such a stark change, sudden lifelessness. Despite how long it may have been coming, it was a shock.

My grandfather rode with me on an errand to Belfast today. Until today, I hadn’t made the connection between Belfast, Maine and Belfast, Ireland. Wikipedia says, from Irish: Béal Feirste, meaning “rivermouth of the sandbars.” I had to take the Ford into the dealership so they could eyeball the fuel tank straps as part of a recall. Since the tank fell out a few months ago, I have new straps so there wasn’t much to look at. Back later when Ford engineers some fancy new ones, I’m told.

Great stories were told. I’m so happy to be around my grandparents. As we drove, my grandfather pointed out the hill he chased his suitcase when the handle broke on a cold February day trying to return home from school in Portland. He talked of how his mother, from Deer Isle, would take the boat to Searsport for groceries. He told me about one day returning from Augusta in a state car in the winter and finding a lost dog in the road, about how he stayed and watched the dog for an hour while someone else went off to find someone in the neighborhood to take it in.

Stories about the sawmill! Oh the sawmill. Swoon.

“Not to keep talking about your father,” he says, “but we used to do a lot together. I really liked him.” He told me about putting hardwood floors down in the camp with my father in the dead of winter, eating beans, farting, and laying floor; keeping warm by the stove.