I wrote and rewrote a bunch of intros to today’s poem, all of them about my grown children and their grandfather, who used to stock the fridge with their favorite snacks and drinks when they visited. Happy memories, so why was my chest so tight and my throat clenched? Because you miss him, Alison. Because this post is really about the two of you.

My dad, who died a year ago, was a giant of a man with a bellow of a voice, the strongest person I’ve ever known. A hug from him would literally lift you off the ground. Both of us appreciated physical work. The winter before he died, he sat on a chair on the porch while I hauled loads of wood from the barn and passed each chunk to him so he could stack it.

He had an unusual ability to accept people as they were. (When I graduated from a chichi college and didn’t even try to find a real job because I wanted to be a writer, he never said a word.) His love language was food, and every year he sent us a big box of petits-fours. The last box of them still sits unopened on my desk.

Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road? by Robert Hershon

Don’t fill up on bread
I say absent-mindedly
The servings here are huge

My son, whose hair may be
receding a bit, says
Did you really just
say that to me?

What he doesn’t know
is that when we’re walking
together, when we get
to the curb
I sometimes start to reach
for his hand

Click here for more information about Robert Hershon. This poem was originally published in Poetry Northwest, Volume XLI, No. 3, Autumn 2000.

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