I am sorry I never visited you.
I couldn't bring myself to see the shell of the man I loved strapped to a wheelchair.
You were starving and incoherent.
I hate myself for not being there as you were always there for me.
I just couldn't go back.
The white walls and polished floors bit into me.
I used to call you Papa.
I renamed you as my own long before you couldn't remember my name.
You can't recall my face when you pumped me full of candy and cookies
While avoiding Grandma's smiling stares of disagreement.
So I stayed home and danced on your feet and planted tulips in the garden.
I ate English muffins and sat on the porch with your soul instead.
I was living comfortably in the past while your disease stripped our future.
I would pretend you understood my absence.
Or that you wouldn't have visited me either if I was in your shoes.
But you always did the right thing.
And I never learned.
The day you passed consumes me.
I can remember every second.
I remember standing in the sacristy preparing for mass
Wincing at the pity stare from Father Jim as the coroner relayed the news.
Mom had told me earlier that morning so I already knew.
She came home from nightshift with tears streaming down her face.
She could barely speak but she told me anyway.
I found my own breath to be unfair.
Then the funeral came.
I didn't want to go but there was no getting out of it.
I had a basketball game ready as an excuse.
My coach felt sorry for me and said the team would be all right without me this game.
So much for that one.
The church was packed with people on the steps and in the parking lot.
The town was somber and silent.
The city aldermen bowed, the mayor smiled sadly.
The checkout clerks from the grocery store sobbed.
The women kept their heads low, the men kept their heads high.
I drowned out the priest with my apologies as I stared at your coffin.
We went to the cemetary following the "lovely" service.
I stared at the hole in the ground like it was a tunnel to hell.
I wanted to jump in.
I stood watching the trees thinking about the wind on my face.
It was March, but the breeze was warm that day.
Dad felt it too.
I pretended it was your breath on my face.
Your reply to my request for forgiveness.
Your way of holding me.
