(Continued)

You did your share, daddy.  No more or less than any father should do.  And so shall you be remembered. 

Still, if I could, I'd turn back the clock, just once, reel in the years, somehow get to know you better than ever before.  Sitting by your side, I'd talk to you of the so - many things we never seemed to talk about, listen to your words, watch the expressions in your face.  I'd gaze deep in your eyes, listen to your voice of concern, learning something only you could teach.  And that laugh of yours, I miss it so, that unique chuckle only you seemed to have.  That was you daddy.  That was you...nothing more, nothing less. 

And then of that walk in the forest with you, the one we never took, while you'd talk of all that might be about us, surrounding us with some sort of inexplicable aura only you could explain.  I'd like to share that with you, whether in a great many words, or merely a handful.  I'd like to climb that mountain we should have climbed together - explore that cave's darkness we somehow seem to have overlooked.  And if I could give anything, almost anything at all, I'd give it just to have you near me again.  Just to be with you one more time. 

But you know that I can't, daddy, that it's time to move on.  That's just the way things are, this cycle, you know.  We all have to come and we all have to go, and I guess your turn just came about way all too soon.  And they say it's too bad, that there's meaning in everything, that sometimes we just don't get around to some of those things.  And even though I've looked and looked and looked for such a long time, for those answers just out of reach, without ever knowing, they've always been there, waiting patiently for me to open the door. 

Looking back, I think of the questions, the things I never thought of way back when, things I'd surely ask if you were here today.  Of the world and ourselves, the roles that we play - that thousand piece puzzle that just never seems finished.  But you're not, and there's really no need now, you see.  As I search deep within myself, thinking of you and all that you meant, as I seek the answers to those questions only one's child could ask of their father, a light, ever so subtle and faint begins to glow, building in intensity as I ponder those thoughts.  The sands of time move on and though I can't turn back its clock's hands, I can turn the hourglass, start the course once anew.

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