The old photo, one of those 4-by-4 squares with a white border, shows my brother and me standing in tiny, matching Keds facing away from the camera watching alligators in an enclosure that must have been in a zoo or a Florida sideshow.

He was about 4 and I was 2. It’s a favorite photo that I keep framed but I’m not sure where it was taken. A family friend said the photo was taken in St. Augustine.

I made a mental note to ask Dad.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen him. It’s time for a visit. Maybe today, on Father’s Day.

I know every daughter thinks her father is the most special. Mine had proven how special by being a great father not only to my big brother and me but to my daughter, Shannon, his only grandchild.

After Shannon’s father died when she was 2, my dad stepped into the role, teaching her the important things in life —how to blow into cupped fists to make a whistle and, when we went to the beach, which seashells were still being used as condos by tiny sea creatures.

Shannon was the only girl in eighth grade who could whistle into her fists.

She’s reveled in tales of bygone days when her “Pop” water-skied barefoot on Lake Tobesofkee, and of Pop’s one-and-only true love, whom he’d married and buried when she was much too young for both.

Shannon read a quote from Jackie Robinson once: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

She said, “Pop would say he wasn’t an important man but look at the impact he’s had on all of our lives.”

She said it after he’d left.

That’s when she realized it, when he wasn’t there. Like you always knew breathing was important but it wasn’t until you stopped — just for half a minute, a minute — and tiny spots formed before your eyes, that you realized just how vital.

Breathing was life.

Pop was life.

Without him, Shannon would never have known a father’s love.