Memories, As Told to My Sister

Memories, as Told to My Sister

I went for a walk this morning.
I didn't go very far and it wasn't a very long walk.
Some people probably wouldn't even call it a walk at all.
I didn't leave the house, didn't even get out of bed.
In those early morning hours I walked through the recesses of my mind.
It seems that I do that more these days.

I walked down a hallway of my mind.
I wasn't a stranger there.
It was a familiar hallway;
But it was obvious that I hadn't been there in a very long time.
There was dust on the floor, and a few footprints there.
There weren't very many.

There was one footprint on top of the other,
With a layer or two of dust between them,
These footprints were mine.
I had been there before.

I stopped at an old door.
There was a bolt on the outside.
Things were kept in there I supposed.
I unbolted the door and it opened by itself.

A flood of memories came out.
They walked out like old friends.
I was quickly surrounded by old memories.
Engulfed me totally for the briefest of moments.
My Daddy was there.
Not Dad or as others knew him by his nickname, Jack
But just Daddy.

We were at my grandmother’s house.
I walked through the rooms of that house.
Each room as familiar and sure to me as if I’d walked through it today.
I remembered the kitchen and how it smelled.
Don't ask to describe the smell.
The memory fades if you try to do that.

I remembered Daddy's laugh and his smile.
He was good at that...at one time.
That was when he was Daddy.
Before he became Dad.
Before he changed.
Before I changed.

That was before I became the man and he became the child.
It was before I knew that he had faults,
That he was sometimes wrong.
Before I grew up.
I miss that Daddy.

He wasn't there a lot.
There was always work to do.
But when He was,
And even when he wasn't,
He was bigger than life.

But this was to a boy named Danny.
Before he became a man named Dan.
And the memory was there and it was good.

I remembered the yard around the house...the old garage.
And the boat that was leaned against it on the outside wall.
That boat was "off limits" to the boy named Danny.
They had told me so.

So I wanted that boat,
Probably just because they had said it was "off limits".
I wanted to turn it right side up and get in it.
That boat, to the boy named Danny,
Was made for "make believe".
So the boy named Danny did what came natural and did it anyway.
Ignore the "off-limits" that they had clearly proclaimed.

The boy named Danny was safe.
My Daddy was in the house.
I could do what I wanted.
And very often did.

You were there in these memories of mine.
Not as Berna, but rather as Sister.
The memory was fleeting.
It faded in and faded out.
But it was fun and I enjoyed it.

I smiled. I cried...
Not with sobs that flow like rivers;
But down deep.
You wouldn't have known it...
It didn't show.

I walked these memories back down the hallway to the door.
The door with the bolt on the outside...
To keep something in I supposed.
They knew and I knew that it was time
To do the things that the man named Dan does...
Business, meetings, reports, people...

No place there for the boy named Danny,
And for memories behind an old door.

So all those memories quietly and happily,
Took their place back behind the door.
The door with the bolt on the outside...
To keep something in I supposed.
I closed the door.
It was time to go.
So I closed the door.

But I won't set the bolt.
I like the memories behind the door.
They know their place.
And I know mine.
I think I’ll just let them come and go as they please.