It Hits You Suddenly

Today, while Russ was out on a walk with Shay and I was rolling up silver forks in cloth napkins, tying them with a red ribbon. The forks are for my annual Christmas Needlepoint exchange that will happen on Monday. I was listening to Christmas music with the tree fully lit, feeling the spirit of the season. One song ended and another began. At this moment I can’t even remember what the song was, just that it was one my father danced with Carter in the very room I was in, many years before.

I was so overwhelmed with the memory of them dancing I burst into tear and sobbed until I was interrupted by a text from my mother about her eyes. I was jolted from my sadness to the reality of the immediate. My mother’s texting is like a treasure hunt for meaning. Autocorrections and lack of punctuation almost always leads me to phone her and ask what she was trying to tell me. Thankfully it was not an emergency.

My tears had dried and the stab of missing my father had passed. It was a quick hit of the song breaking my heart just a little, but by the time the song had ended I could not even recall which song it was. I was left with the sadness of missing my Dad from a happier time.