I was thinking of my childhood dreams and how they have not come to fruition
I sit and chat with him watching his memories fade as sun light fades silk
Slowly and surely time is robbing us both and, as in all nightmares I can't make it stop
It seems a dream, he's been blessed with old age, still tall dark and handsome even
The face shows a lifetime of living, of cigars and Jack Daniels
Hands that played cards long into the night and still tip the hat at a pretty face
An eye that can still appreciate beauty in a well tailored suit
And in the closet I found remnants of Sip and Dips and social clubs
He is blissfully unaware of the stealth of disease, the terrible price he's paying for this longevity
It is I dreaming the worst of dreams as I watch him disappear in front of me
Stand witness as he accepts with seeming indifference the gaps in his memory
I want to scream, he seems resigned, no matter-of-fact with the knowledge that he no longer remembers his wife and that she died and he grieved, the mother that strapped him on her back while she fished and killed snakes, the father who taught him to read late at night and made sure he went to school, the older sisters that feed him and gave him his first woman and the big brothers that give him his first drink, first ass whopping and his first knife
All gone from memory
My spirit stands up when he asks after his granddaughter only to be cut off at the knees when he not only doesn't recognize her face and shrugs his shoulders as if it's not the biggest thing in the world not to remember your grand baby
Why God why I ask, why take the memory of a man, a man that prided himself on running numbers and never writing them down, a man that knew exactly how much money he had in the bank every single day, a man that knew the backroads, whore houses, bootleggers and number spots in New Orleans, Orlando, NYC and Savannah, a man who always knew where the fish were biting and how to get there
For him there will be no porch sitting and reminiscing
For me there will be no Daddy tell me again
My mother, her wisdom peppered with bitterness, salted and shamed, a woman scorned said God is too damn good to him, letting him forget all the bullshit he did!
My childhood nightmares were of monsters in the dark, confronting the class bully, wearing homemade clothes and of Ma cleaning the ash off my face with spit
Now I dream horrible dreams of the day he won't recognize me
No smile when I walk in the door
No how's my baby doing today I'm so glad you came to see me
No I just love looking at my baby
Living waking nightmares of late night phone calls from police stations hours away saying we have your father in custody, we found him wandering and confused
I still dreams of a child
I want the stories of my birth and childhood told, told only the way a father can tell
How he felt when he first held his daughter
I am that child, I still have those dreams
I want my dreams to come true
I want always to be the child
The child of his dreams
