Sometimes I grieve

Every so often I cry. I cry hard. I cry like a six-year old who didn't get picked for his friend's team, who didn't get the toy he wanted, who didn't get dessert at dinner time…

Every so often I cry…

Tonight was one of those nights, when I grieve a little for my father. He died several years ago, and I still grieve his death. Maybe because he felt it necessary and life-altering to obviate my company for somewhat close to twenty years, maybe because he is still daddy, even if I have gray hairs in my nose.

What do I know?

I just know that I grieve, and I cry…

But tonight is different. Tonight I have an episode of what I could describe with disdain as the "crying mee-mee's". Tonight it was the whole three-ring circus of runny nose, sobbing, and streaming droopy eyes, when a single thought came into my mind:

What if he was lonely?

What if the last thought in his mind was not a happy one, but one of regret?

That's enough to give me another round of huddling, silent "ah-gh-gh-ghck" so I don't wake the wife with my sobbing… you know what I mean, c'mon, guys, y'all have done that…

But mostly I wonder if I did enough so that in my father's heart, as it failed him, there was in there, no matter how deep or disguised, a hint that he was still in my thoughts and in my prayers, and that his last thought was a happy one, and fuck you if you think that's corny, I'll kick a hole in you and bash your stupid no-chin face in if you so much as remind me that I kept him at arm's length for years…

Yah, sometimes I grieve…

D