It’s been twenty-eight long, aching years
   
Since I last saw your face through tears,
   
Yet today, on what should be your day,
   
My heart still finds so much to say.
You’d be seventy-five, can you believe?
   
It’s hard to picture, harder to grieve. 

A life that time won’t let me know,   

A future we lost so long ago.
I wonder if your hair turned white,
   
If your hands grew slow but held me tight,
   
If your laugh still filled a quiet room,
   
Or softened all life’s creeping gloom.
I carry you in secret ways,
   
In sudden thoughts and quiet praise, 
In how I try, in how I love,
   
In every whisper sent above.
Some days I still reach for your voice,
   
A word of comfort, a father’s choice.
   
But silence answers, calm and wide, 
A space where only love can bide.
And still, I celebrate you here,
   
With all I’ve missed year after year.
   
No cake, no candles, just the sky,
   
And a tear that doesn’t ask me why.
Happy birthday, Dad. I hope you see
   
The pieces of you that live in me.
   
I miss you more than words allow,
   
But I’m loving you always.   
Even now.

©️Lainey Green - Intwined.blog

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