In the inky darkness of my New Year’s Eve, endings and beginnings arise to haunt.
A light comes and my Dad appears at the threshold of my room just as he was many years ago when last we touched and said goodbye. I was 17 then and he was 45. We were in a terminal departure area, jostled inside the crush of families saying goodbye to their children about to embark on a year-long study abroad. He pulled me aside, his eyes wet with tears, I want this to be the best year of your life. If anything should happen to me, you are not to return.
He died three weeks later.
My gaze rests on his stooped frame filling the doorway as if he were just dropping by. He wears the Harris Tweed jacket he wore when last I saw him, its braided leather buttons undone, except for the middle one. I see again his long fingers twisting it to contain the bright slash of his yellow paisley tie. His left hand is in his pocket-- an easy pose, with his thumb extended over its brown leather rim. I follow the line of the front crease of his fawn twill trousers, smile at his brown suede shoes with their tasseled laces peeking out. He’s perfectly all together just like that last time. My chest swells. I love how he looks.
