I saw him.
Years ago,
‘twas only a glimmer of him
of the barest shimmer of his eye.
So spare that I wasn’t…I couldn’t be sure.
(Funny, it seems to me –
not hilarious, but rather ironic –
how folk, looking at babies,
characteristically, perhaps unconsciously, searching for the iconic,
a representative symbol pointing beyond to another,
turn to one parent or the other or both,
saying, “Your child looks just like you!”
Then, it also seems to me, as days become years,
children grow into their own, individual, grown-up faces;
the ones with which on all of life’s paths they will walk,
the ones through which they will see all, speak to all,
the ones of which they will be seen by all, heard by all,
the ones by which they will be known by all.
Then, as circles run, back ‘round to the beginning,
at least, it doth not seem, but rather, it is for me…)
As days have become years,
and then, more years,
arriving at that time called “now”,
now, by time’s premeditation, I see him clearly;
my countenance, aging, becoming my father’s face.
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 
I absolutely love this!!
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Thank you, Connie
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Paul,
This is amazing!! You did indeed look more and more like your father!! Now that I’m 60 the few people still around who knew my father tell me how much me, my mannerisms and my personality mirror my dad in an extraordinary way. One person even mentioned that I’m carrying on my dad’s legacy in a big way…though I never met him I guess that’s a cool thing! Remember when we were younger we swore we’d never be like or look like our parents?? Now maybe it’s not such a bad thing!!
Much love!!
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Loretta, I consider it a grand thing that those who knew your father can and will say to you that you remind them of him and, more, that you are fulfilling your father’s legacy. As you did not know your father, these comments, truly, offering a look back to him and a look forward as you carry on, thus, in the first instance, are historic and, in the latter instance, prophetic. As I’m wont to say, wonderful, wonder-full!
As for me, I long wrestled with my relationship with my father, indeed, I wrestled, if not physically, then, surely, figuratively, but no less truly, with him. Ours was a difficult relationship. Some of the reasons are clear to me. Some, doubtless, I cannot and never will know. It was in his latter years – and, I suppose, at that time of his aging, mine, too! – that I came to behold a fuller picture of him; one that bore flashes of light as well as the shadowy images I’d had of him up to that point. This, then, and now and ongoing, allows me to accept with some grace the reality that I see him in my face, more and more each day.
Love you
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I thank God for the Grace you’ve found regarding your father…both the light and the shadows! Awesome!
Love you too!
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Yes, Loretta, my father and I and our relationship have come a mighty long way over the years and many of those years following his death. For this reason, among many, I have come to understand that those we knew and loved, we can continue to know and love after their lives in this world end.
Love
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