The Father

            His large stature belies the true size of his heart.  His arms are invariably strong and reassuring, able to cradle and comfort as equally as they are able to reprimand and convict (though not condemn).  More than once they held a sobbing boy struggling to get through the friendless throes of middle school.  His legs are thick and burly, powerful enough to launch his children onto his bed in a game, but quick enough to catch them should they unknowingly stray into the street in front of the house, or to chase off a stray dog that was slowly coming towards his two-year-old daughter. 

His belly is slightly rounded, comfortable for a small child to sit on and pudgy enough for an older son to lovingly tease, but nowhere near “fat.”  His hair, once black, curly, and thick as moss, now resembles the sprinklings of salt and pepper shakers, the remainder buzzed almost to the skin to coincide with the loss thereof; a shiny patch where hair allegedly grew once provided a mirror in which his children, in their younger and more inconsiderate days, could check their own hair, much to his chagrin.  He could not rest on the couch watching the news after a long day at work without hearing giggling behind him and turning to see one or both of his sons fixing their own hair in the back of his head.  Then, of course, showing his children pictures of him when he was younger, sporting a relatively substantial afro in the 1970’s did not stop the giggles.  The hair on his face is a shape-shifter all of its own: beard, mustache, goatee, but always something.  The one time it was nothing, he was unrecognizable to his son.  He had a mustache, thick and black, when his son left the house that morning for church; when he caught up a bit later all was gone.  Who was this strange man sitting next to the boy’s mother?  Where is father? 

His teeth, once gapped in the middle, are now fixed by the wonders of modern dentistry, though still stained by all the coffee father drank at work, at home, at restaurants.  Coffee was the fuel to allow for provision to the family.  His deep blue eyes, the ones he gave to all his children, hide behind small spectacles, enabling him to read short bedtime stories to the young children and check the report cards and homework of the older ones.  His laugh is thick and hearty, like the Dinty Moore beef stew he used to eat and share one (just one) bite with his son.  He is quite tall, his head brushing against the roof of the car he would one day give to his eldest, only to see it crushed on the way to school.  See, one would assume that in a man that size all would be proportionate, but the heart…the heart is disproportionately bigger.