28 Years

It took 28 years to visit his grave
I wasn't even sure where it was in the cemetery
As I stumbled through the sleeping stones
My young son in my arms
It was Fathers Day and I was called here
Not knowing why
Just knowing deep inside it was time

I found his mother first, sleeping next to his dad and brother
then I saw his resting place, his name in granite

What took so long I thought
Why was I afraid to be here with him
Was it because I was afraid to be with him
when he walked this earth?

It was the loneliness that I had felt when I had him
amped up by his passing at age 44
leaving me all alone in this world just two weeks shy of my ninth birthday

Years of anger rather than compassion fueled my German stubbornness
keeping me away from this day
I knew it had to come eventually
Hopeful for resolution, asking for peace, wanting understanding
Afraid at this time with what I might find deep inside myself

I sat and looked down at his stone with my son Chris sleeping in my arms on this warm June day
Chris being almost three and the true love of my life, I knew then why I had come

To ask for his forgiveness for the anger that I had harbored all these many years
He did not want to be the way he was
He, like me in later life, was powerless over the way that it turned out

Holding my son Chris as I sat there I finally knew what I had missed
His love, His touch, His reassurance
The things that I had missed so much at eight or nine I held in my arms that day

Tears streaming down my face as I looked into my sons' eyes and asked for my fathers forgiveness and felt that it was given
I walked away a different man that day
My fears subsided, my prayer answered, peace and understanding had come to me that day from my father and my son .