Of Ships and Fathers

Growing up with a father that always seemed greater than life was not always easy. He worked all the time.  If he wasn't at Ordside Service, he would be working on some other car for a neighbor or friend.  It was a rare treat to spend time with my dad alone.  One special Sunday I was invited to an adventure. We were to go to the Monterey wharf to see one of the last three masted sailing ships still working the coast of California.  I could not have been more than 9 or 10. We toured the ship just Dad and I.  
It was amazing.  Tall masts with furled sails.  The hull was made of iron but the rest was all wood and rope. But the tide was going out and we had to disembark.  So we watched as the grand old ship pulled all the lines in and set its grand white sails and moved into that arching blue bay.  
It was going to San Francisco, its next point of call. That ship was an object of beauty and strength. We stood there until the white sails became nothing more than a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky came down to mingle with one another. Then someone in the crowd said, “Look, she’s gone”!

That day is often brought to memory.  My sometimes over shadowing Father, the perfect blue sky, and  while sails as they seemed to fall off the edge of the world. But it also brings to mind that exclaimation from the crowd, "Look, she's gone".  But we must ask, "Gone where?" Gone from my sight, that is all. That grand ship with its large mast and hull was not any less strong or able to cut the waves. That ship was diminished size only because of my perspective.  That ship is "gone" because I can not see it any more. 

In my golden years of retirement I often wonder how I will be remembered when I am "gone".