the first time my words failed me

i’ve always prided myself on my ability to talk myself out of trouble, to sweet talk, and lie and scheme and invent and explain. it’s a defense mechanism, my body thin and fragile couldn’t deliver a blow, but i quickly became skilled at using my words to cut…and cut they did, deeply.

more often than not, my words were not used that way. more often than not, i told funny stories, hyperbolized experiences and made jokes that made people comfortable and maybe even less alone. my words become my weapon, my curse and my salvation.

they failed me when i needed them the most. my mother, no longer just my mother, reduced to a child, lost her father.

i couldn’t find a single word to console her.

i could’ve said: “it will be okay.” it wouldn’t have been a lie, eventually, as things do, it wouldn’t be okay. the pain would be enveloped in…life simply growing around it.

i could’ve said: “don’t cry.” but who was i to tell a child how to grieve a parent. i couldn’t begin to comprehend the loss of someone who had been there since your first breath on this planet.

so i held her. and i let her weep. we cried together, for a father, a husband and grandfather lost. the man with the best jokes, who could come up with rhyme or a whole poem in a matter of seconds. the one who gave me my music and songwriting. the man who man who gave my mom her ocean blue eyes.

we cried and wept and maybe it was more than words could’ve even said. we continue to hold each other, until the life grown around the grief.