Last fall Hugh bought me a digital camera for my 49th birthday. Actually, I’m the one who shopped for it at J&R while we talked on our cell phones. I’d identify a camera in the case and ask Hugh to look it up on the computer. I’m not sure where he was looking but he seemed knowledgeable about all of them and finally encouraged me to buy the SONY.

Almost immediately I fell in love with my little, easy-to-use white digital camera and I tried to have it with me as much as possible. Truthfully, too often it seemed like I didn’t have it with me when I needed it most. Still, I was grateful that I took the few pictures that I did.

Today Hugh discovered a great picture I took of my father in his living room last fall. A beautiful shot, it was taken just weeks after his first hospitalization and he looks healthy and strong. Staring right at me like we’re in the middle of a conversation, he is sitting in an Aalto chair and wearing what looks like a freshly laundered white shirt. His hands are folded and the expression on his face make him look "curious, skeptical, humorous and fully alive."

Seeing the picture I started to cry, which is something I’ve been wanting to do but haven’t done much of since Sunday. Instead I’ve been feeling very knotted up, achy, spaced-out and like I have a bad case of indigestion.

But when I saw that picture I connected for the first time in weeks with my real father. Not the one who was lying in Mt. Sinai Hospital in an unflattering hospital gown; nor the one in the borrowed hospital bed at home.

No. This picture of my father looking right at me was the real deal. And that was enough to make me weep.

(I will put up the picture up later on.)