Remembering those we love …

Sitting at your bedside, writing your obituary, I put “1/X/2023” as a placeholder to fill in, as needed, in a day or two. I can’t risk waiting until then to write this. Things move too fast. You taught me to always be prepared.

I think you squeezed my hand. We both saw your feet move. Can you hear us talking? Are you gone, or are you trapped? I can’t let you go if you’re trapped. Duty forbids it.

The doctor says we “would not be wrong” to move you to comfort care only. I’ve slept here four nights; played Pavarotti by your ear; said wildly incorrect things in the hopes of a waking rebuttal; tried silence, and tried noise. Is “not wrong” the same as “right”?

With the priest, I recite the prayers that you taught me. In this moment, I can feel two places in time, four and a half decades apart, converge and touch each other, one a preparation for the next.

One of your close friends is younger than me. She tells me you changed her whole philosophy of parenting. She is now a shepherd, a guide⏤not a sculptor. She looks at her children with curiosity.

Even hearing your final breath, I struggle to believe you are gone. You would, no doubt, remind me that nothing, not even Death itself, can separate a child from the love of their parent. I wait for you to show yourself to me, but I know you are exploring, probably asking Paul about his letter to the Romans or praising Wagner for his epic operas. No doubt you are laying in a field of flowers with Mama, cataloging the stars, looking for the ones you named after each other, performing some beautiful intellectual dance with words and ideas and inventions and daydreams and laughter.

If all Truth is revealed to you now, then I suppose I don’t owe you any apologies, and I should let go of my regrets. You see it all now. The struggle. The truth. The intentions. The limitations. The love. You would tell me it is an act of faith to forgive myself. Why hold onto something you’ve asked God to remove?

Everyone sees your photo and tells me I have your eyes. In my vanity, I never gave much thought to where that sparkle came from, maybe even assumed it was self-created, but now I can see it in photos, clear as day, passed down from generation to generation, from Wilson to Wilson to Wilson. You are the root of the tree, Papa. How quiet and constant and large was your love. Thank you for being my father.

Copyright 2023 Kesel Wilson (entirely, 100% human-created)

Please share my writing with your friends and family.