You no longer recall my name,
but you know the comfort of my presence,
the familiarity of my hands on your kind shoulders.
Your laughter soothes my worried soul.
I try to grab onto your memories of old, but they are no longer within reach.
I must step again into the present moment, into our drives through the park, our dishes of ice cream by the riverside.
I bring up Kent State to see if there is an old story that somehow your mind swept the dust away to tell, but I learn again to accept what is right now, knowing that this moment one day won’t be.
I love you dad. I wish I could hear your old words of advice, but I know they are locked in my heart for safekeeping.
I used to get agitated listening to the same life lessons over and over again, but now I know you were imprinting them into my soul, so that when you didn’t have the words to share, they would actually always be within me to hear.