The Reflection Pool

Since my uncle died in mid-March, I have been trying to capture the memories tied up in the loss of a man I hardly knew as an adult but loved more than anything as a child. Beyond that, my attempts have been wrapped around the call of a morning dove. I have yet to meet success with this endeavor. It isn’t the loss so much of the man but that I am now the sole holder of the memory, the memory of the experience.

Fact of life: people die.

Fact of life: memories fade.

Aside from a connection as a child. there was not much else to the relationship but the memories. His smell hangs in my nose, a combination of his cologne and beer. He sat in a lawn chair wearing a white tee-shirt and black slacks. I sat on the arm, dirty from the day’s play, knees scrapped up, elbows bruised. I studied the rising and falling of the doves coo. I perfected it. It became our way of speaking. He’d call, I’d answer. The rise and fall of the coo. He had a family of boys. I was his girl. I just can’t seem to get these thoughts into something more than that.

I think it takes me too long to feel…..