Today my father turned 91! Ninety-one years on Madre Tierra. That’s a long time! He has seen many changes to the planet, to our human culture during these years. At this moment, he is feeling them all.

It has been a tough six months for Dad since Mom died. Everything feels off kilter. ‘Meaningless’ is his word. He recently moved to a senior’s residence and is feeling his days of empty time. Lots of silence and solitude and loneliness. His Paradise feels very far away.

Nor does he want to celebrate his birthday! Birthdays were not celebrated back home in Ireland (as he was reminding me at Sunday lunch)—not for his mother, not for his father and not for him today. For him a birthday is just another day of emptiness, a day for dreaming of bygone days, another day for contemplating a cloudy future.

The pain of grief and’attachment.’ Sigh.

A counselor friend tells me there is no side-tracking the grief process. Only time will temper the hurt. But my Buddhist friends say that ‘attachment’ is an unnecessary addition. Attachment (or co-dependence perhaps) can cling so closely that the self is almost lost—a scary place for anyone. This is where my dad is at on his 91st birthday.

He and I talked about this notion recently. He even accepted it in theory, but at 91 it is hard to make a course correction. It didn’t get much farther than ‘it isn’t good to get too close to anyone!’ Not what I hoped he would glean from the conversation. Another sigh.

So I yell loudly to the world, ‘Happy birthday, Father, mi padre!’ You may not be able to hear it today but it is good for the planet to enjoy your name day. The tide will eventually come in and the dry places will be watered. You will once again catch the current where joy resides.

Your joy will come again, Dad.

Every six or eight weeks I receive a visit to my church office from “Roy.” Whenever he comes there is a quiet understanding between him and me: he needs cash and I am the cash giver. However, this time he just sat and asked how I had been keeping. He also wanted to show me his new boots that he had received from the kindness of the Scott Mission—Roy said, “Yeah, the guy took me to a discount shoe store and told me to grab whatever I needed so I chose these black, warm working boots—they are so great!”

Eventually, after a rambling conversation I jumped to the point and asked, “What’s up Roy? How can I help?” At that point he opened his mouth widely and showed me his teeth. Most of them were missing and those that were left were rotting. Roy said, “I need caps—eating is so difficult because I can’t chew my food!” I looked at his decaying, black covered teeth and pulled a twenty dollar bill out of my wallet. For a new set of caps.

After a bit we hugged and I told him to keep in touch. I told him to look up a friend of mine in London, Ontario who would help him out. He said, “Thanks, I will.” Then he slipped out the side door of the church for another season in the cold, and often unfriendly streets of Toronto.

When Roy left I mused on what it would be like to be him. The difficulties of rotting, painful teeth and the challenges of eating, having to constantly navigate my way of life on the street! I don’t think I would do very well. I am too far removed from my hermit great grandfather who lived in Cave Hill just outside of Belfast.

I told myself: be thankful for your teeth, Alan, and your Bolivian dentist Dr. Zarzar! Don’t be an ingrate, Alan. Be truly mindful of life’s/God’s blessings each day. Be compassionate, Alan. Spread it around. Always give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Life is tough and people don’t need judgment from me—only compassion and love.

These are the things I told myself.

Maybe, that is what we all really need—gratitude, compassion and love. At least it is a good start, a good intention, as we bounce our way through a myriad of hurting, bemused individuals in 2012. I’m trying harder. For Roy.