It's already been a month and I wish I could remember, but you are already fading//like water in my palm you are slipping away through tiny cracks that my weak eyes can't even see.
And after so many Christmas Eves in front of that fireplace, a lifetime of crushing hugs and walks and stories,
After eighteen years of living next door, of assuming you would always be just across the lawn and up a few stairs,
After the beach every summer, hurricane evacuations, dusky evenings on the wide, white porch..
After all of that I should remember you with startling clarity but I can't recall the smell of your aftershave, or your laugh, or the way you looked in the sunlight in all the summers of my childhood// Even in my pictures you don't seem real/ Just a dream I had once, a figment of my wild imagination.
You were the kind of grandfather a child would wish for.
The calm, strong center, a place to turn, someone to count on,
to hang on to...

But now you're gone and the only thing I can smell is that stale hospital room where you looked so small. I remember the rough feel of your skin as I held your hand in mine as tight as I could as if I could somehow pass my strength to you through our touch//I know you were running out and I would have given it all to you.
You stared at the ring on my finger, turned it and it threw tiny specks of light across your tired face/
I know you were thinking that you would never see me in that white dress because I was thinking the same thing, too
And in that moment I realized my heart could break in ways I never knew were possible.

Without you is somewhere I never planned on being and now I'm left here and I just don't know what to do.

06/16/2011

Author's Note: Helplessness is not a feeling I am used to, but I miss you so much that my insides have been replaced with some dark cave and I can't seem to find the light.

Posted on 06/16/2011
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