but David, I miss you. I remember an afternoon in Clifton when we three girls got stuck in the front office of a photography studio because the everything's-bigger-in-Texas storms blew in and we were but ten to thirteen or nine to twelve, I'm not sure, our blond hair stuck to our necks, legs wet with warm rain, as we shivered in that lobby. You picked us up and we dried off and I walked into grandma's kitchen to steal a few peanut M&Ms from the small glass bowl she kept perpetually filled for us. You were standing in the doorway and you were singing Doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64 and it seemed so far away then, so many years down the road.
But it wasn't. Here we are and yesterday would have been sixty-six if you'd have made it. But you didn't make it. You didn't make it to sixty-four even -- when you died on October 1st, you were sixty three and that afternoon, I stayed for a few minutes in your room after everyone else had left. I kissed you on your too-cool forehead. We did. Still. We do. Still.
I can say that with certainty. I miss you in ways now that I only saw glimpses of then. And every time that sweet lilting tune, so bright, so cheery, comes across my radio - I see you in grandma's kitchen, singing, and the eleven or twelve year old me giggling at you, razzing you for everything I miss so desperately now.
I am so sorry, M.
ReplyDelete