For My Dad On His One Hundredth Birthday
I feel you hovering around me,
your presence, your spirit,
a feeling, like fingertips
lightly grazing the skin.
Ten years have passed
since you shook off
the coils of this world.
Your presence is not
some ethereal spirit
condemned to haunt a
place of past transgression,
but more that of a father,
connected forever to the
ones that he loves.
I feel you the strongest
when complexities clutter
my life, my mind seeking
communion with yours,
calling out to you as a
frightened child cries out
for comfort in the predawn
hours following a nightmare.
Staring into the bathroom
mirror I search for your
face, in the creases on
my forehead the crows feet
around my eyes, longing
to hear your voice
praying a blessing over me
as you did for me
for so many years
before I would go to bed.
Formed and shaped by
your DNA, yet, as each
snowflake is created
distinctly different and beautiful
by our loving Creator
I realize that I am like you
and so unlike you,
similar yet never quite the same.
Gratitude born long before my birth,
I rejoice in having walked
alongside you for fifty-two years,
a man of great faith, dressed
to the “T’s in integrity and dignity.
Many look upon your image
and call you “iron man”,
one who has been tested
and proven worthy,
one able to bear life’s
great and heavy burdens.
For me, you will always be
“my dad”, devoted to God
and to his family. One who loved
me into existence.
Happy Birthday, Dad.
Copyright ©
Robert Wagner
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