I know what she's looking for - she's been searching for months. It must be in the evenings, now it's winter and the nights are predicatably longer. There's no distractions in a quiet house. It used to be around dinner time that he'd be playing guitar, or starting to watch something on telly and she'd be getting mad at him and telling him to wait til she was done with dinner, or playing music really loud. 

'Come and listen to this' he'd insist, and she'd get frustrated because she couldn't drop everything, but she'd drop *anything* now to hear him call from the other room. I know this because she tells me. I too would give anything to be interrupted by a phone call, something he was excited about and wanted to draw you into. There was an innocent joy about my father. He could still find good, remarkable things in the world. 

She's been looking for his voice. She doesn't want to forget what he sounds like. 

75 years younger than he, his great grandson shares his name, so when I search in the archives of Google I'm given hundreds of small videos of the little one, but there's only three of my father - one is an accidental two second video where I meant to take a photo of him walking down from Erskine Falls to Lorne, some ten kilometres through giant tree ferns and over rocks. It was the last long hike he'd ever do. He looks older than I remember him. His hip was aching at the end, the bones weakened by chemo. It was a wonderful walk. 

The other we're all gathered around the Christmas table at my uncles in 2020. We are all dischordantly shouting 'Happy Christmas' at the camera and it takes three takes to video it for my son, who hadn't made it because he had tested positive. Then there's a video where I'm filming my nephew serving icecream and he's talking with a silly accent, but in the background Dad's telling a story, which is out of context now because the start and end of the story is missing because of the length of the film. Still, there's twenty seconds of his voice. 



![Screenshot_2025-05-09-09-45-51-13_99c04817c0de5652397fc8b56c3b3817.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/riverflows/23uQtiL2NNAU9ZHfvg5sboFKJwnWVcdmWdAv6PUFLhEEjeNds2D3sjaMqPa5QsJBdApZp.jpg)


The video she finds is four seconds long. She's mock frustrated as his hand is in the frame, obscuring the photo she has been asked to take of the river. What he says is this: 'down there, look' and his hand sweeps from the lower left of the frame to the top right. 

It's funny how a hand will undo you. 

These hands, that tapped out a drumbeat of songs on his belly as we lay on the floor between speaker stacks listening to music. These hands, that cut through the water as he paddled to the outer reef at Impossos, me struggling to keep up. That held the rake he obsessively used to clean the paths of gumleaves, dug holes with the green handled shovel and planted trees, held the cat up to the ceiling so she'd swipe at moths. That grabbed my shoulders and pulled them back and said: 'shoulders back, tits out!!' to correct my posture. That clasped together to form a triangle with his elbows to push up into a headstand. That mock wagged fingers at me when he was mock telling me off. That plucked at guitar strings, moved a mouse around, drafted house plans and buildings with ink pens. That pressed a finger against the shutter, capturing clouds and waterfalls and waves and landscapes that his hand would sweep around, insisting we see what he could, the wonder of it. 

That held his grandchildren, and one great grandchild, and me, and my sister, when we were born.



<center>

# `With Love,` 


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/riverflows/23t6xT1abr5kFMeEirKwZ2QqT6MK9U4SBpKCQZAjVEojgm7uSSGL9AJSuwtBsUmMAV5jv.png)







**Are you on HIVE yet? Earn for writing! Referral link for FREE account [here](https://hiveonboard.com?ref=riverflowsJ)**</center>
<a href="https://peakd.com/@naturalmedicine">