Enough

One day tucked into the edge of a too-short breezy gown at the foot of a lived in bed, I heard my father say my father say my father say
I've lived a good life
I did what I wanted to do

i was here

and he talked about Atlanta and baseball, beaches and family and trips and graces
falls and slips
but in my eyes he wasn't very old wasn't very old wasn't very old
and it was no time to speak of goodbye
so when I heard my father say my father say my father say
he was ready
and staid
and grateful
in that moment of humility on the edge 
of a bed 
of unforgiving weakness
I didn't hear what my father said my father said my father said
because I didn't believe him you see
he was much too kind to death
and I was bitter at the sight of that gown

It wasn't enough
It will never be enough
not then not now

I could see in his heart he longed to jump off the edge 
where his bare feet dangled
over bedsheets and the unknown abyss 
of eternity
all in the same blink of time
I didn't want to hear you say your life was enough when in my eyes it was anything but
Run, Daddy, Run! I knew once his feet hit the floor he would never look back
and he knew once his fast running legs tucked back under the covers he would never get up
again
I wanted his choice to be the floor 

because I didn't want to hear defeat
and I didn't want to see disappointment
and I couldn't bear the thought of regret
because I know damn well he had some

so he lied

for me   

I wonder today - this night - what enough is
And what makes it enough
and how long must it be
to count
as enough


because I want to believe that love like that covers a multitude of whatifs
and lies like that made him believe it was true
because he knew the terror was gone from his daughter's eyes and she was alright
Oh, Daddy. You could always outrun my fears
 
I have friends whose mothers are dying and mothers whose children are
dying 
and me
just dying to know what it feels like to
slide face first into heaven on a third base line
carrying small dreams full of gratefulness
and big dreams full of empty
Daddy would know

And then there was this: an enormous gigantic bigger than life accomplishment I'd forgotten, perhaps even willed to forget until this very night when I sit here wondering if I've done enough to make my own life count and how must it feel to go to heaven empty.
 Every few months for as long as I can remember he would get up at the crack of dawn before work and make a special trip to a place he knew well and people who knew him.
He did it so many times in his life that by the time he was middle-aged he had earned many pins from the American Red Cross. In the wee hours of daylight he would stretch out his arm and donate as many bags of blood as they would allow, to people he'd never meet or know, and then go to work.
But somehow in the strangest of ways tonight, I know them.

And they are telling me that what mattered in my dad's life was not what I thought should matter to him, not the education he never finished, or the regrets I had for him, or the major league contract he lost, nor the limitations of scarcity and a life lived starkly simple, in front of me and a world that counted such things as wealth as the only worth of a man.....but what matters is that somewhere tonight there is woman who grew up to be a mother and a mother who grew up a child because my dad cared
enough
and that was enough

I Was Here

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