Crosby, Still, Nash, Young and Heinlein

A missing lyric by Heinlein to the song "Teach your children well"

Don't,
Handicap your child,
But making life,
To easy for them.

Lament

I left to go on a walk and now here I am sitting down, that makes a lot of sense! Something is just not right, I feel... sad or loss, I can't quite put my finger on it. I think if someone was to see me sitting here they would probably read that from my body language. So why should I care?

Here comes Dad, I thought he might be coming this way.

"Excuse me you remind me of someone I know", he says. Always joking. I think he did notice and he's trying to lift my spirits. I see his hand as he is leaning over me and I grab it to hold. I find myself moving my thumb back and forth across the top of it. Such a weather beaten hand not like mine at all and yet I seem to know every part of it as if it were the back of my own hand. I still feel that feeling a little but now I'm happier just sitting here not saying a word and holding his hand. I feel like I could just stay this way forever.

What if he guesses? Mom might be upset if he knew. I've got to stop looking so... "What's wrong, you look as if I'm going to die". Too late. I've got to say something to steer him away from knowing.

"No you're not going to die." For some reason, this seems true and yet, I feel like that's what is at the heart of my sadness and sense of loss. How could that be? It's a contradiction.

I wake up. Dreamy sleepy thoughts are getting replaced with consciousness and slowly I realize, oh yeah that's right, he's been dead now for a couple of years. If I just could have stayed there with him a little while longer...