Breakfast with Dad

This morning, I had breakfast with my dad.

Now, before you think I’m seeing things, I should tell you—my dad died in April of 2024. But that doesn’t mean he’s gone. The communion of saints, or what the writer of Hebrews calls “a great cloud of witnesses,” isn’t confined to some distant heaven. I believe they surround us, especially in the small and ordinary moments of our lives.

Today, my breakfast was simple—an “Egg in the Basket,” one of those meals that’s more about comfort than cuisine. But what made it holy was the plate.

Back in 2003, I had melamine plates made for my mom one Christmas—each one drawn on by my nieces, their artwork forever sealed into something useful and lasting. My dad, ever the artist, decided he would make one too—this one for me. My name is written in his careful calligraphy, surrounded by his tell-tale artistic flair: flowing lines that shape a mountain and trees. Beneath it, in his unmistakable hand, it says, “Love you Dad.”

And so, this morning, as I buttered my toast and watched the yolk spill golden across that familiar scene, I felt him with me. Not in a dramatic or ghostly way—but in that deep, quiet knowing that love doesn’t end. That the people who have shaped us remain part of us.

The cloud of witnesses is not only the saints in stained glass or the heroes of faith in scripture. It’s also our parents and grandparents, the friends who taught us to laugh again, the mentors who believed in us, the ones whose handwriting we still recognize, whose voices still echo in our hearts. They surround us when we pray, when we grieve, and yes—even when we make breakfast.

Today I ate with my dad.

And in that simple act, I remembered that the boundary between heaven and earth is thinner than we think.