After Daddy's Death.

I don't know about normalcy. Nothing returns to normal if it was in some kind of relationship with our fathers. I lost my father in March. A lot of what makes a son a man comes from and is within his father. What that means is different for each son and each father's death is different for each son. The similarities start with the loss and the fact that the shield you carry as a son is forever altered with the absence of your father alive.

It is an adjustment I watched my own father make when I was 19 years old. I didn't fully grasp it until standing beside my father's death bed with my siblings and from on high the weight of Daddy's essence ascended upon me, and my sister handed me Daddy's wedding ring. As the first born, obligations and the Unknown became part of the shields fashioned from what was learned and gleaned from Daddy's covering, his elegance and power and the legacy of shields he carried as a man with a wife.

These are my words in pain, release and revelation. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories {9/15/16}