2the1

To myself and my kids, after the death of my father

To the one who came before….  

You did much, and I felt lucky when I was a part of it.  

You did much, and mostly because you thought it was right…  

but sometimes (I think) because it was the only way to get something for yourself.  

The memory of imagined interactions haunt me…  

it hardly seems possible, but they live, and hold my mind and won’t let go.  

Demanding more of your time, even if we had less of other things.  

Letting you explain your passions to me, even if I wouldn’t share them.  

Encouraging you to stretch, read a book, to change….  

Reminding you I might respect you more if you did, 

but love the same if you didn’t.  

How you were less an example than I’d wanted, 

and more of one than I realized.  

How I’ll never get to say the thing that’s caught in my throat…  

because it’s too late, and because I wouldn’t know 

the right words anyway.  

 

To the ones who came after….  

You are here, in part, because of me.  

In the most basic sense, I am responsible for you.  

I can’t explain how that knowledge weighs me down;  

or the delicate balance between response and control.  

Lost memories of time I’ve never spent with you haunt me…..  

it hardly seems possible, but they live, and hold my mind and won’t let go.  

Halloween nights trick-or-treating.  

Birthday parties, where we invited your friends over.  

Teaching you to ride a bicycle, to swim, to eat with chopsticks, to…anything.  

Your first day of school.  

They never happened, yet I can see them so clearly,  

somehow knowing loss for what never was. 

 

To the one caught in-between…  

feeling like you’ve always been here, 

hating being stuck…. 

yet too scared to be anywhere else.  

Every road not taken haunts me…  

it hardly seems possible, but they live, and the 

possibility of each intersection holds my mind and won’t let go.

Afraid that everything missed means it would 

be better not to risk;  

not to dream, and chance more haunted shadows of what might have been, but never will be.