Ann chose to wear a set of purple earrings with a coordinating necklace to honor her father, John Heywood.
My father died of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2001 a few days short of his 87th birthday. He lived a generous, loving, and productive life and fathered five children.
He suffered from asthma in his younger years and found relief by traveling to the rarefied air of mountains in the West. As the wheezing season of summer intensified in August, he spread his maps on the dining room table and planned wonderful family vacations, bringing along Mom and two to five of his children as ages were appropriate. We piled into an old Buick, rolled down the windows, and let our hair fly and tangle in the wind. We always kept a big thermos of water in the back seat, and those on thermos duty were busy on those long, hot days traveling across the plains.
Dad loved history, so we stopped at every roadside historical marker and many historical sites. He told us background stories he’d read in the books on our shelves back home. I might have thought we made too many of those stops as a kid, but now that is pretty much my habit too.
How wonderful it was to find the car finally climbing to the elevations that brought his relief. The Rocky Mountains! We kids scrambled up the mountainside to the white patches of snow, and Dad was right with us. We grabbed icy snowballs and jumped over mountain rivulets. Wildflowers graced the slopes. We ate the sandwiches we had packed while breathing in an incredible mountain vista. Later, nearing the mountain passes, Dad took our picture as we looked down on forests, green fields, and a sinewy stream. Dad and Mom gave me all this.
Over those years I got to see the Rockies, the Tetons, the Sierra Nevada; The Badlands, Bryce, Zion, and Yosemite National Parks; the Great Salt Lake, the Grand Canyon, San Francisco and Cripple Creek; and so much more. Dad put up with noisy kids, dusty roads, broken fan belts and radiator boil overs, and my hospital stay in Jackson, Wyoming. I don’t remember any cross words.
I love to remember the words of wisdom people leave with us after they are gone. One of my favorite lines from Dad was a Latin quotation he used when people disagreed about matters of beauty or tastefulness: “De gustibus non est disputandem.” With a smile, “In matters of taste, there is no argument.”
Don’t you love the jewelry!
– Ann Heywood
