Hello, Dad

“Hello, Dad,” I whispered.

And for the first time in my entire life, the words were not a sweet game played in a hospice hallway.

They were simply, completely, unshakeably true.

I keep the brass pocket watch running.

It is the one thing of his I carry, wound each morning, ticking away in my pocket through my days at the foundation, and there is a reason I chose it over all the other things in that box.

For twenty years my father measured out his life in a currency of time, spending year after year in the dark so that I could one day have my years in the light.