I've been thinking about my dad for the last week. His birthday was May 9. Neither he nor I were there to celebrate it, and he had the better excuse.

 Dad died last August at age 75. He would have been 76 last week. By modern average age standards, 75 isn't all that old. It's also now only 28 years away for me. (How did that happen?)

Now I'm feeling a little guilty that I didn't make the drive "home" to Virginia last weekend—even though I visit and call my family often. (The following day, May 10, was also Mother's Day so I should be feeling doubly guilty.) 

Why didn't I go home? To be honest, my husband and I had a big lanscaping project and other stuff around the house that we really needed to do.  It was the first weekend in over a month with decent weather (i.e., little to no rain) and also the first in a while without other committments.

We actually managed to accomplish a lot last weekend. Good thing. It has rained nearly every day this week (as well as this weekend), so we still haven't yet been able to finish taking up the old mulch and putting down the new. It's a job we have to finish quickly so that the pile of loose mulch, which was dumped onto a tarp by the landscape supplier, doesn't kill the lawn under it.

My mom, who still is an amazing gardener, will appreciate our efforts. Dad? Not so much. Until he retired, I could probably count the times he'd mowed the yard on my fingers and a couple of toes. And I'm pretty sure he never completely clipped all those boxwood hedges that once lined two sides of my parents' yard. (Mom probably wouldn't have let him clip them anyhow since his haphazard efforts wouldn't have met her exacting standards.)

Dad didn't hate gardening, he just preferred to do it on a grand scale with a farm tractor.  He did big gardening on our family farm—acres of tobacco, corn, potatoes, beans, oats, wheat, hay, etc. And he did it on weekday evenings after laboring all day long as a carpenter, and on Saturdays when he could round up a little help from family members.

Sunday was a day of rest for Dad. The most he'd do after church and lunch was drive the couple of miles from our house to the farm and check on the livestock. Sometimes he'd get the tractor ready for Monday farming by hitching up the plow, disk, mower or baler. Sometimes I'd go along and ride my horse while he did the gentleman farmer thing.

Sunday was also a day for "loafing." After Dad came back from the farm, we'd often pile in the car and go for a drive—usually without a destination in mind (or none that Dad cared to share with the rest of us). We'd often end up in some far flung corner of our county or an adjoining county. Dad sometimes picked a road to take simply because he hadn't "been down it in a long time."

Back then, I didn't appreciate the symbolism (or the irony) of all the "roads not taken" that our family took on so many Sundays.

My brother and I still like to "loaf." We both have fond memories of driving with the windows down, pressing our faces into the breeze and watching the scenery stream by as if we were fast forwarding through the world. In the front seat, Mom and Dad would point out all the sights, discuss who used to live in various houses or reminisce about people long gone and events long past.

So the next time my husband and I drive home to Virginia for the weekend, I'm thinking that we should all pile into my brother's van and do some family loafing—even if my teenaged niece and nephew aren't as enthusiastic about it as my brother and I once were. But isn't that what taking "the road not taken" is all about?