A Sadness

From the age of nine through high school, I walked in and out of three homes in my hometown as easily and as readily as I walked in and out of my own home. Truth be told, I think I could show up at all three of those houses tomorrow, ring the bell, walk in without waiting, and be welcomed. That's just how it was.

The Dad Person in one of those houses has died. I'm not sure I've seen him since my own father's funeral. I don't think I have. It doesn't matter.

Tonight, I am nine again, and having one of my first sleepovers in his t.v. room with his youngest daughter and another girl whose house I would eventually make another home. I am thirteen and have just gotten hurt in the theatre and his hugs are big enough to make me feel better and calm me down. I am fifteen and heading off to Philadelphia and he is at my going away party. And on and on and on...until I am twenty-seven and my father is dead and this other Dad Person is in our kitchen.

I am the youngest of the four daughters the two families have so, perhaps, it is the time that these phone calls and emails will start coming. But I don't want them to. And I don't want him to have been the first. It is, though, and he was.

Which makes me sad.

Those are Pobble Thoughts.