It is almost December. Lately, it seems like it is always “almost” something. Almost fall, almost Halloween, almost winter, almost Christmas. Are we always so focused on the almost that we forget about today? Sometimes I wonder. When we picked up June from Sunday school this week, she ran out of the room with Kermit in a headlock under her right arm. I could tell by the look of terror on her face that she hadn’t enjoyed herself as much as the week before. Climbing the stairs, I asked her, “how was Sunday school?” Quietly, she answered, putting her hand on her cheek, “I cried, mama.” “Oh no. Why?” “I…

My friend, Tommy, sent a podcast for me to listen to about sons + fathers. Something about it, he said, always reminds me of you, and I’m not sure why, but you need to listen to it. Taking his advice, I held onto the podcast for a week, hoarding it like leftover Halloween candy in the back of my cupboards, waiting for just the right moment. On a Thursday evening, as I drove home in the rain from Trader Joe’s, I finally pressed play. As I listened to it I thought, this reminds me of me, too, but like Tommy, I wasn’t sure why. Isn’t it nice to have friends…

I have been trying to find the words again. It has been ten days since my grandma’s passing and still I feel the loss of her like a fresh cut on my knee. And with this ripe pain comes the loss of my words. I used to see the world in sentences, everything unfolding before me in lyrical sequence. But now, everything is quiet, wordless. It is the kind of haunting silence that I used to feel when June first started napping in her own crib behind a closed door. Eventually, I know, the silence will return with a bounty of words, but for now, I must pick them carefully…

The red table cloth still smells like my grandmother’s house even though it has already been washed many times. Impossible, I tell myself, only to be conflicted by my senses again. I take it out from the dryer and let the familiar scent rush over me. Time and place are fluid in the memory’s eye. Closing my eyes I think of her then, as she once was, before age got in her way. Then, hearing June downstairs, I close the dryer door and the laundry room as well, leaving the moment behind with the lint in the dryer’s trap. I have been sorting through boxes I found last weekend, stashed…

The morning is quiet and cool. All around me, the neighborhood wakes like the happenings of a novel: a woman in slippers turns on the sprinkler, a dog barks in the distance, a runner’s footsteps can be heard. My coffee, hotter than the air, steams beside me. I sip and write, sip and write. An old habit reviving my soul. There is a man at the home where my grandmother lives who types all day. My dad always wonders what he is typing and I do, too. Years from now, when the gray has reached my hair and wrinkles, like algae, creep down my hands and arms, will I still…