He's so thin these days.
He's so thin.
He sits with his head down on the kitchen table to catch his breath, waiting for strength that hasn't come for years.
When I was a little girl I'd run to him with my arms up. 'Uppy, Babbo uppy!' and he was the strongest man in the world then.
He lies, pale on the sofa, hand on his forehead, fighting nausea and dizziness and the urge to let the rest of his life slip away like it's trying to.
It's trying to.
And it was late once and I had a fever and his cool hand was on my cheek. 'Oh, Honey Bunny' he said.
And now he's leaving me.
This man who made my world. This man who jumped from airplanes he'd later fly, who solved the Rubik's cube
this man who knows every single question to the answers on Jeopardy.
This man, who taught me to turn off lights when I leave rooms and who introduced me to Inigo Montoya for the first time. My Babbo. My Babbo, who can play the boogie woogie song on our baby grand Cary Grant once touched like no one else on earth...
He's leaving me.
Now, I don't really know my grandmothers, though I vow to make that change, and I didn't hear my grandfathers' stories before they passed away
But my babies, one day, will know my daddy's name
They'll know his stupid jokes, they'll know his stories, he's always got a story, they'll know he was the smartest man, I swear he's the smartest man.
I never saw it this way when I was a little girl and everything was possible, expected. I never thought that, IF he's there,
If? What is this word? If he's there, since he limps now, maybe he'll limp me down the aisle one day.
If he's around, since he's getting weaker, maybe he'll be sitting when he first holds his grandbaby.
I told him once, I did, and he nearly spat his soup out his nose, but if I hear he's winding down, I'm getting pregnant THAT DAY because he's meeting his grandchild, DAMN IT, before he leaves me.
But his voice is weaker on the phone
And this distance
Not seeing him
is killing me.