someday I will go to New Orleans
thinking
of
you
on this Sunday after CBS Sunday Morning &
Meet the Press
Sunday . . .
Sundays were reading the funny pages together, pot roast & golf-on-tv-days
sleepy nappy days ..
when I was very small
I would steal away to your bedroom with some treasured book & fall asleep -
my cheek waffle-printed from that nubby white bedspread
that smelled of Canoe & cigarettes
sleepy nappy days ....
and yet today, I am thinking about all the things you saw in your lifetime ...
things beyond pot roast & Sundays :
your childhood, illness & fishing and that big brother you idolized ...
the complete wrapping love of your mother, and the brutal Irish-Love of your father, fishing, school, excelling in every sport you tried your hand at, poverty, and going to war,
your love of New Orleans, more fishing, how you extended your hand & your friendship across lines of color, crossword puzzles & reading and
golf - the lives you touched, the stories you unfolded, the generosity of your heart.
I miss you ... not just a Sunday-kind-of-missing
but an every day kind of missing
still
it is a sleepy-nappy-Sunday-missing
that leaves it's nubby-white-waffle-print forever pressed upon my cheek & heart
someday I will go to New Orleans
