My dad died in the wee hours of the morning on this day thirteen years ago.

October 23, 2010.

He was 96. His 97th birthday was about six weeks off. In one of those little coincidences, his mother had died the day before her 97th birthday.

His death wasn’t a surprise, in the broad sense. He had been in a nursing home for two years, and his condition had been worsening for a couple of weeks. At one point when he drifted into a lucid moment, he put the question to me.

“What’s happening?”

I didn’t know what do say, as I didn’t have a reassuring answer. Instead, I reached out and held his hand. At that moment, it had to take the place of words.

He didn’t show up in any dreams on the day he died.

But I wrote about a small incident that happened a couple of days later.

This is excerpted from a post written the morning of October 26, 2010.

A friend from Austin, Texas left a response to my comment about my dad not returning in my dreams. She wrote:

My father and I have a deal: when he crosses over, if it’s at all possible, he’ll get back in touch to tell me what’s up. That said, I’ve had subtle signs from those that have passed that all is well.

You’ve had a long good bye with your dad, so watch for those subtle signs – it could be documents you stumble across that make a mental connection, a ringing phone, a person who comes into your life with a message, or even an emotion/vision that comes over you that you know is from him – you never know. It’s mysterious and wonderful, this continuum of life.

Subtle signs?

I got up at just about my normal time Monday morning, 4:45 a.m.

I made my way to the dining table, trying my best not to trip over the cats that were lobbying hard for breakfast.

I turned on an overhead light, then dimmed it down.

My laptop was waiting, and I still had to complete the little photo gallery of the weekend’s dogs. There was a stack of several portable hard drives next to the computer because I spent some time Sunday afternoon looking for “the” photo to accompany my dad’s obituary.

I grabbed the top one, which I thought had the latest photos.

As I lifted it, I turned it over to read my handwritten label. It was upside down, but I read: “Photos John Lind”. That was a surprise, both because I thought the latest drive had been on the top of the stack, and because I didn’t recall labeling a “John Lind” drive. But, I thought, let’s see what’s on it.

So I plugged it in, booted into Lightroom, my image library software. It immediately opened to the dogs playing on the beach, which meant that it was the latest drive after all.

Now I picked it up again, turned it over. This time the label was quite clear: “Photos June 2010.” That’s how I marked it, with the first month it was put into service.

Perhaps my eyes, stress, and the early hour, had simply played tricks the first time around. Just a silly little thing, perhaps.

But I thought of that comment about little signs.

Who knows?

He still makes cameo appearances in my dreams now and then.

I look forward to them.

This is a photo of him walking on the beach in Kahala. I believe he was 94 at the time. My parents bought their home in 1942, after initially renting a cottage at 1018 Kealaolu Avenue, the same address where, some 70 years later, a stolen mail box led to a major federal corruption investigation that eventually sent the former Honolulu chief of police and his wife, a prosecuting attorney, to federal prison.

Yes, a small world, indeed.