folders

so i've been better ya know?
less teary.
doin' my thing. gettin' lost in work.

i'm doin' folders today. cleaning out files,
changing my folders over.

i've got a rack of folders on a big table i'm
workin' at. i get all thru them. i'm at the end.
there's two odd folders left. it's all been
folders of shops i work with. all work stuff.

last two folders.
odd folders.
what are these?
one's family quotes. i keep silly things the
guys say in it. oh that's fun.

what's this one?
that looks like my dad's handwriting.

the man shoulda been a doctor. you can't read
a thing he writes. and he had a gazillion folders.
he was OCD and folders fit in well with that.

i open it up.

there's my dad's obituary. oh wow.
so i read it.
and underneath that, the only other thing
in there, a big picture of him and my mom.

i look at it and the tears come.

i'm alone in the room and i say out loud
thru tears, ' i really miss you.'

and i got to thinking about it....
from when do i miss him?
it's not just from when he died.
i lost him years before that.

but no, wait.
it wasn't really then either was it?
it had to be before that.

and so i sit and think....
did i ever really have him???

well.......how do you word that?

he couldn't see me. not sure why.
so if you can't see someone, or accept
them or whatever it is...well...then
is it that they don't have you or you
don't have them???

i couldn't figure that out.

but something i did figure out.....

i saw him.
real clearly.

i honestly believe i saw him better than
anyone else in the whole world. i may be
wrong, but i believe that.

so i had him.
and i guess if i had to pick, one of the other....
if only one of us could see the other.....

i guess i'd want to be the one seeing.

i liked him. i just did.
think some of my good traits came from him.
he's still kinda here in me.

funny timing....
on my walk in the rain yesterday, i thought of him.
he'd walk every day too. no matter what the weather.
he'd just head out.
and i grinned. i hadn't thought of that before.

it's one of the things he left here.....
one of the things he passed on.....

a kooky walk in all weather walkin' daughter.
and when i thought of that, i realized he was
here in a thousand ways that i hadn't noticed.

i got the better end of the deal.
i got the ability to see.
i got the ability to love him for who he was.

i did okay.

i never looked at it like that before.

but i really did okay.

now.....back to those folders......