One of the first pieces I wrote was about my father and I going off to work on a winter morning. It was bitterly cold. I was off to deliver papers and dad was walking to work. My father was walking because one of our cars was in the shop and he wanted to leave the other car for mom to drive. We didn’t say much. That’s how we were. Silent, stoic men off to do a day’s work in the bitter cold of a Wyoming morning. He walked down one side of the street. I walked down the other. The image of him walking from one pool of light to another remains with me.

That was 60 years ago. My son and I reprised the scene this morning. The tone was different. We asked how each other slept. He had a car to use. I was staying home. He was going to work. I was retired. We are still silent men. I think it is genetic. We know that we love each other, though we rarely say it. It is unspoken between us for the most part. Deep down, though, we are not the type of men to leave love completely unspoken. We know better. We love and want to be loved. We speak the words on occasion.

We found out this week that I have a terminal illness. For me this is a certainty. More than a vague eventuality. A few months to a couple of years at best. I’ve seen a palliative care doctor. We’ve started to make plans, to fill out forms, contact family so there are no surprises.

I’m gathering my writings together one last time.

Which brings me back to that piece: my father walking through pools of streetlights, along the empty city park, by himself on the opposite side of the street. I can hear his boots crunch yesterday’s tracks. I can see his breath clouding around his head each time he enters a new circle of light. On the opposite side of the street, I am a block behind him, rolling newspapers, the rubber bands stiff in the freezing mountain morning. I watch him. I do not know if he hears me behind him.

Sixty years later, my life replayed the scene. More than a coincidence. I’m startled by the repetition and similarity. There is a significance I need to understand, born in the recurrence. Three silent men going to work in the cold silence of morning. Unspeaking. Making their way into the day.

It’s a puzzle I need to resolve. An ineffable thread I need to follow what connects us father to son to son across the seasons. The pattern in our palms tells the pattern of our days. A deep connection, not always acknowledged, but always felt.

This is what happens as I gather my writings again. I find old pieces that prod for a new resolution. It is the circle.

Blessings

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