My father would have been ninety-nine years old today.
In September, he’ll have been gone for thirty-one years.
It’s easier to imagine him as the child in this picture
than to imagine him at ninety-nine.
Of two things, however, I’m certain:
If here were here today,
his blue eyes would still be twinkling,
and
he would still be making us laugh.
###
When I was a child, my three cousins looked like my mother,
and my grandmother, and my aunts,
but I didn’t look like anyone.
I felt like an outsider and decided I’d been adopted,
although old photographs and witness testimony indicated otherwise.
It was years before I realized I looked like someone after all.
