In Austria, your vocation was as a cabinet maker. Through your artistry you built storage spaces for simple, important and necessary things. In America, your craft taught me to cherish the simple, important and necessary things. As your journeyman, you showed me how to fit the pieces of my life together in the dowel joints you cut.
* Rotating oranges and plums around the dining room chandelier, you shed light on the orbits of the planets
*Before tackling the giant slope, you had me practice on a self-made slope in the backyard, over and over again
*When you built the pool deck, you worked from daybreak until the last rays of the sun fell on your glistening back.
*Finding an abandoned baby rabbit, you called the humane society because you could not abandon a cry for help
Father, I know you wanted to be an artist and paint canvases in Europe rather than living room walls in America. Please let your son share a lesson with you: parenting is an art every bit as important as any fresco painted by Michelangelo. Thank you for helping me put my life together so well.
