Member-only story
Awakened Memory
Crimson Leaves
Where I Found Them
As I button my coat around my neck,
I am mindful that the anniversary
of my father’s death is approaching.
The climate of that day
evokes episodic memories
that need no calendar.
The call came in from
the skilled nursing facility:
He was gone and we should
come in quickly before
the body was taken away.
When my brothers and I
visited his final bed,
I noticed for the first time
his black and perfect eyelashes,
untouched by age, elements, addiction,
and the destructive path of disease.
It increased my fondness for him
as a fellow human and traveler;
sometimes the beautiful is only revealed
in the perfect stillness of death.
We each said a prayer over him —
the one chosen from the beginning of time
to fulfill the role of our father.
He placed his entire being
at the mercy and passion of Christ,
who cried out to his own father
“Why have you forsaken me?”
And here the son of God
defined love and granted life,
leaving crimson leaves beneath a tree.
