I saw my dad today.

The first was while stopped at a red light. A man, unshaven and in need of a haircut, stood by a bus stop at the intersection of 70th and El Cajon. He was clutching the small brown paper bags you get at liquor stores, the lid to whatever he had purchased gone. He was thinking about something; I could tell by the way he gripped the chain link fence with his weathered left hand; his forehead scrunched and lips in just the right way--not a pout, instead a cross between a pucker and a purse. At just the right moment, this man waved his hand away as if to say --I'm through with this bullshit. And there he was. My dad isn't unshaven, in need of a haircut, or --thankfully--drinking from a paper bag in broad day light, but I saw him. For a flicker of an instant, I saw my dad when he's angry.

Then, at the grocery store. He was my dad's age--old enough to feel aches and pains he didn't have ten years ago, but not old enough yet to retire. This man wore a Harley shirt, something my dad would never wear in public; I didn't notice him at all until he walked by. Then it hit me. I'd recognize that scent even if I hadn't encountered it for a dozen years. The aisle of pasta, the salad dressing, the olives, they all vanished and I found myself doing my makeup back in my parents' bathroom (I never used my own for this--better lighting in theirs). I'm leaning in close, the mirror fogging a little as I exhale, applying my Maybeline with precision. The blade of my father's razor is scraping the overnight whiskers from his face, the sound seems painful because-- he had a beard then-- he wasn't using shaving cream to get those two tiny patches on his cheeks. It was a disappointment when I realized I was still in the grocery store; stupidly staring off into space in the pasta aisle.

Most startling today was seeing my dad in Super Cuts. I went in for a trim, a little reshaping before my friend's wedding next week. My hairdresser wore a tight purple dress; it showed more of her cleavage than necessary as she leaned over me to suds up my hair. She threw the towel over my face, rubbing as much water from my scalp as possible. With the towel still over my head, she led me to the chair at her station. More toweling off. A straight comb dragging down my scalp. I looked up and there he was again. I watched as the hairdresser in the tight dress combed his hair-- never thin but never thick; and his eyes, a dark blue with eye-lids that will be heavy with age, looking right into the mirror, reflected back as me.

And there I realized, no matter where I am, my dad is with me because so much of who I am is a gift I received from him.