When I was 9 or 10  my dad told me, while driving between Homer and Anchorage, that he had walked and hitchhiked every inch of the road and he had a memory associated with every stretch and corner and dip and homestead cabin along the way. He said one day I would too. At that point in my life the road seemed so vast and unfamiliar, what he said seemed unimaginable. 

Today I drove from Homer to Seward. He had correctly foretold I would one day know the road as he did, but he may not have known that so many of my memories would be of driving with him.

There is a straight stretch south of Ninilchik where there used to be a spruce tree with 7 trunks. “Isn’t it beautiful ,” he marveled, when he first took me there in middle school. 

I remember where we picked up hitchhikers near Cooper Landing on our way to camp at the Palmer Fair one year. My cousin and I sat in the tiny cab seats in his brown Chevy S10 and made faces through the glass at the backpackers crouched under the shell. 

Some memories I inherited. Driving by K-beach Road always reminds me of when he told me about the time he hitchhiked that road for hours, unable to figure out why a single car hadn’t driven by. Finally, a couple out for a drive after Sunday service came by and picked him up. They told him the new road had just been opened. That is, of course, the road we now take through Soldotna. 

Speeding  from Homer to Kasilof to catch the emergency salmon opener. 

Laughing every time he went through Happy Valley. 

Passing all our sleeping bags through the window to the Good Samaritans trying to keep the injured alive after a winter car accident. 

Practicing the alphabet backwards. 

Some memories are more recent. On Halloween 2021, at 4am, we encountered a road closure just before a bridge near Cooper Landing. A landslide from heavy rains had covered the highway. We waited for 4-5 hours, drove back to Soldotna to get some breakfast, and then back to that bridge. We waited 17 or 18 hours before we turned around and headed back to Homer. By then we knew we would miss his oncology appointment in Seattle the next day. Every time I drive through there now I fight the irrational, fleeting thought, “If we didn’t have to wait those three extra weeks for the rescheduled appointment, would it have made a difference?”

There are a lot of memories of driving between Homer and Anchorage that fall. To get imaging. To review the images. To drain his lungs. To go back and drain them again. Each time I would drive and fight back tears. It was scary and sad and I wanted to be strong for him and I didn’t want to talk about how I really felt because I didn’t want to make more real. I wish I had. 

On this two year anniversary of his death, I find that it is easier for me to make space for the memories, happy and sad, than it was one year ago.  In that way, he feels closer to me now, which is both unexpected and welcome. 

I am comforted knowing that the swans at tern lake, the ponds where he first showed me beaver dams, and the Inlet views along the bluffs are still there, creating space for me to grieve, remember, and feel. 

I miss you dad. And I love you forever. 

my most frequent and fond memories of Bill center around his deep love for adventure and play. .... with  people and play.  He was true to his namesake, "Pukuk" - always getting into things........  curious and risk taking.  He encouraged me to join him on some adventures even though I was a true homebody.  I miss those spontaneous escapades.