My father's language of love

Music blares. Beep bop bop. Thrum thrum... Stand up for your life. ... There's hope. It doesn't cost a thing to smile. You don't have to pay to laugh. You better thank God for that!

Sun. Laughter. Voices chatting. My daughters are busy. Getting ready. Music. Hair dryers. Questions of what to wear. Does this look alright? Should I change to the white top? The pink one? What about this scarf?

They're waiting for a call from their father so they can take him out in celebration of his role in their birth.

He planted the seed that became their lives. Gratitude rises. Thankful hearts reign.

Fathers. I never knew my father well. Never knew what song sang within his heart. Except sometimes. In quiet moments. Walking along the Rhine on a Sunday morning. He would stop and gaze across the placid waters. Up into the trees. My father could hear the wind whispering through their leaves. He could hear the wind's stories rustling.

He'd stop and listen. Sigh. A deep soul refreshing sigh.

"This is beauty," he would say. We'd stand and watch the barges silently drift along the river. The water deep and dark. Ripples in their wakes furrowed with frothy white.

My father yearned for far off places. For lands unknown. Stories untold.

My father told a good story. Once, he told me about being in the desert. About the sand. The wind. The arid lands. "We brushed our teeth with sand," he said. And then he tried to show me how they made glasses out of wine bottles. "Here," he demonstrated, dipping a string into gasoline, tying it tightly around the bottle's top, just where it dipped inwards towards the neck. "You light it and..." with a swoosh of flame, the string lit and broke the top of the bottle off. "A glass," he said holding the product of his spark of light up. Sun glistened on the deep green of the glass. Light fractured into prisms of colour.

My father wasn't much of a handyman, but he sure could bake and cook. Donuts, butterfly cookies, cream puffs. Stews, roasts, liver and onions. Chutneys and jams. My father was most comfortable in the kitchen. It kept him busy. Kept his mind and hands occupied. The kitchen gave voice to his dreams.

Food was my father's language of love. "Here, try this." "I found this recipe." "What do you think of this?" And he'd proffer some new delicacy he'd created. There was always some new conversation erupting from a plate of goodies out of my father's kitchen.

It is a language of love he shared with all of us. Gallagher kitchens are busy places, our hands constantly stirring, mixing, beating, rolling, shaping ingredients into some new delicacy to share with those we love.

My mother learned to cook from my father. When first they'd married, having lived a life where servants took care of everything, she didn't know how to boil an egg. Through my father's teachings, my mother learned to speak the same language. From her tongue, words from the kitchen encompassed tasty morsels of gourmet delights even my father couldn't compete with. With my mother, the teacher became the student, and the kitchen their banquet of love.

My brother was the curry maker. He learned from my mother to cook the foods of her home. My father often complained of the aroma. Too rich. Too ripe. Too replete with spices.

"Food is best appreciated in its simplicity," he would say. He could cook anything, but he never liked to eat most things. "I eat to live, not live to eat," he would opine whenever garlic permeated the air.

He didn't like spicy food, but cooked up a mean chili. "I don't cook for me, I cook for others."

Throughout his life my father always came home to the kitchen. Throughout my life the kitchen has always given my heart a way back home.

My father has passed on. In his passing he has left behind his language of love.

I am grateful I knew my father better than I think. I give thanks for the gifts he gave that live on in the heart of my home with my daughters.