The Dad-ness

If the heart spoke English, what stories it could tell.

Instead, it's tucked neatly behind the walls and armor we've built up over the years. It's trapped behind the stories we tell which may or may not be the whole truth as only the heart could know it.

They tell me Dad has congestive heart failure.

Over the years I have tended to the wounds of my own heart, some of which came about from a different kind of heart failure....the failure of his heart to connect, care or listen in a meaningful way.

When I was a teenager i wrote a song about him, and his narcissism. it was a somewhat witty song, trying to express my disappointment and cover it up at the same time. Yeah, I tried to play it cool.

Over the years I braved it up and told him about the things in our past that hurt me. I always let him know I loved him, but tried to say what i needed to say to. Never easy, is it?

The heart is a funny thing.

It feels something and then we do all we can to ignore it, quiet it,or sometimes if we are very brave to listen to it.

I'm sad for my father. To see him shudder from some invisible chill, to see the confusion cloud his eyes. I'm sad.

As i left the hospital room today I kissed him on his forehead and held him for a long moment.

'I love you' he said, looking up at me.

'Know that.'

'Know that.'