Like how he hadn’t wanted to make
the four-hour drive to the once-familiar lake
nestled in the mountains of northern Arizona—
how repeated blows to his spine still
reverberated down his back decades after
that last championship football game;
like how he struggled to explain the crippling
fatigue and clouds of depression swallowing
even the pleas in his daughter’s eyes;
like how at 7:00 a.m. that morning,
he surprised her and silently shuffled
to the rented jeep she’d loaded with two
tents, a sleeping bag and a patio recliner—
the only chair in which he could sleep;
like how he watched her battle gale winds
to pitch the tents, strategically position
the zippered doors to face the lake and
lug the awkward chair down the slope
to the larger, dome tent; like how she
did not ask and he did not admit
that a flat, paved sidewalk was essential
and so slept in the jeep; like how neither
said a word about the fishing rod that
remained in its tube beside the canvas chair,
like how he said nothing as he watched her
cast and mend and lose nearly every fly
in his tacklebox before finally
she admitted she had never
been good with knots
and asked for his help.
So fiercely independent, the two of them,
right up until their last time alone
when he murmured from the gurney
“I love you” and her tears
soaked the cloth of his gown
the same color blue as the summer sky
above the once-familiar lake nestled
in the mountains of northern Arizona
as she whispered, “I love you, too.”
I can think of no better way to start this year than with a poem about unspoken love. It is from this source of strength that we bring our unique lights into a world of recurrent darkness.
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