papa

Dear beloved grandfather,

The weather has turned to rains. Soon the snow will come again- the sixth snow since you left us. Already the air is thick and heavy with cold. The nights are long and the noisy geese travel overhead. And I think of you often.

I also think of my dad often- and though I know you never liked him- I think of you both together, now. The anniversary of his death is near, Thanksgiving night. It will be nineteen years. It's a strange thing to remember you both at the same time... perhaps it's the season. I don't know for sure. I only know that death does strange things to the minds that observe it. Everything becomes mixed up- in mourning for you I find myself equally mourning him. For myself. For humanity.

I'm tired, papa, and I wish so much that you were here to speak with me. There are so many things that I can't understand even with my heart. There are so many subtle things I cannot grasp... like why everything that seemed good and true turned out to be false. Why everything that can be said isn't worth saying- but what can't be said must be somehow communicated. I feel so heart-broken all the time now. Things that brought me happiness only make me heavy- soft and strange. I saw this in you, too, but I did not recognize it then.

I keep going back in my mind to that Christmas- the year you died. That small ceremony has changed everything- who I was before is not who walked away that day. You were there, somehow, as I trudged up that trail into the fog of the Cascades. I remember- sitting atop frozen Crystal Lake, listening to the snow fall. The only sound. I imagined the millions of people waking- opening presents. You and I alone in the mountains. Before I lit that candle and said the words, there was only snow and cold- and then- it was as if the snow was you, somehow transformed. I felt you there- in the rocks, the ice, the snow and in my own self. My hand became your hand- my face yours- my voice yours- my tears yours- and yet my own. I became, that day, unalone.

It's been years now, and I see that it was not you that came to dwell with me that day- and so I've grown to miss your form all over again. Your voice. But it was what dwelt with you that came to dwell within me. Gently, you gave me this last thing- and only by your leaving and my accepting were you able to give it.

My heart swells and overflows now- and it is not my own. Nor is it yours- but somethng else entirely- and to share this... I can only share this with you, for now. I can only deepen the gift you gave by guesswork, hope, and love. It's the only thing I have left.

Papa- I can't tell you how much you mean to me- even as I let you go. I can't begin to thank you for the impact and goodness you placed so carefully in my life. I can only hope to pass along this gift you gave as best I can and to face the fatigue that comes with it with the clues you left.

I love you profoundly,
more than any words might ever give tell,

your forever-loving son,
david