Revelation

I can see now that it was perfect, the way he told us. Awful and epic and tragic, to be sure, but perfect in its poetry and synchronicity.

There we were, in his hometown, nestled in the hills. It was the town that birthed him and, to varying degrees, shaped each one of us.

It was the morning after his daughter's wedding day, and the happiness still mingled in the air with the fog that drifted lazily over the lake.

Dutifully, the two of us met him on the wooden deck, giddily apprehensive to learn why we'd been called together in his own peculiar way. It was typical, really.

But no: it was anything but typical.

He never stopped smiling, steadily transmitted optimism and cheer, even as the words fell ugly and black, like stones: cancer. prostate. bone. stage four. two years.

My head reeled; my breath stopped. I knew I couldn't cry. I knew I couldn't cry. I knew how disappointed he'd be in me if I succumbed to my weaker instincts and began to cry.

"You're just like your mother," he'd always said, and it was condemnation, not praise. So I let the words keep falling like stones, and tried to will my emotions up high, to a safer place.

In short order, however, his other daughter started to cry, to my surprise and relief. She'd always been the strong one, cut from the same cloth as him, and so I felt I'd been given permission to let my own tears fall.

But it wasn't until later, when I was away from it all, when I was with the man who knows me best, that I could let go, let every bit of it go. He knew everything, and he let me let go.

I let go. But I think I'm still falling.