COME OUT OF HIDING

She lost her hair in San Francisco, four weeks ago, on the windy Bay Ferry as she laughed and took pictures of me hanging over the boat's edge, one shaky hand on her iPhone, the other holding a steaming cup of coffee. She lost it as she tried on antique earrings at the Alameda Flea Market. She lost it as cold, white wind hit our faces on the tops of tourist buses.  She lost it in handfuls in our tiny bathroom at The Chancellor Hotel, strands falling like dandelion wishes on the sink next to the complementary soap and shampoo. She lost it at the Sunday Farmer's Market as I devoured raw oysters and local peaches, she lost it watching seagulls. She lost it smiling, she lost it dancing to her favourite song, she lost it sleeping, she lost it lamp shopping in The Mission. And how lucky am I? To see her staring in the mirror as sun streaks through the 13th floor hotel window, trying on earrings and lipstick, seeing what works with this new look. How lucky am I? To be witness to the beautiful losing, knowing that there's somehow a winning buried in this somewhere. 

This was her second trip to San Francisco. The first was years ago, before I was born, when she and my dad were first married. She joined him on a business trip and recalled how disappointed she was in a red Golden Gate Bridge. Memories of Irish Whiskeys drunk and streets devoured, and of bell bottoms rocked no doubt. As we road atop the tourist bus a few weeks ago, she spotted the very bar they spent their evenings in. I imagined my dad there, the life of the party to my mom's shy, the story teller to the listener, the extrovert to the odd, the jokester to the laugher, the pianist to the pitch-less. They are perfect in my memories, my parents together, their 42 years, me in 34 of them, my brother in 33. That's what memories do; they become perfect, and the rough edges of people smooth out and they glisten in your mind. 

But my dad wasn't perfect.

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