Inheritance
How do you wear that face—
so calm,
so expectant—
while your shadow still lies
across the hospice bed
you barely stood beside?
You ask for the necklace back.
The one you gave her
like a man tossing breadcrumbs
to birds he forgot he hatched.
A gesture—not of love—
but penance,
so cheap it tarnished before
the sun set on her last breath.
Do you remember her voice?
It softened when it spoke your name,
not because you earned it,
but because she carried a heart
too big for this world.
Even as it failed her,
she let you in
like a child clutches fire
hoping it might warm,
not burn.
And me?
I watched you disappoint her.
Again.
And again.
And I seethed behind silence,
held my tongue
to keep the peace she never got.
You missed her vows
to warm another woman’s hands—
a woman who’ll forget your name
faster than your own blood
ever could.
What audacity it takes
to measure affection
in heirlooms,
to call yourself a father
with nothing but a title
and a vanishing act.
You haunted our lives
like a storm that never rains—
just the threat,
the pressure,
the waiting.
We chased you once,
children with open arms
and scraped knees,
thinking maybe if we loved loud enough,
you’d stay.
You never did.
But I’ve grown now.
And so has the truth.
We didn’t lose a father—
we dodged a lesson in smallness,
in how not to love.
Your absence sculpted
something stronger in us
than your presence ever could have.
You gravitate to strong women
like moth to flame,
leaving soot on their walls
when they shut you out.
But their light didn’t fade—
they raised warriors
in spite of you.
Because of you.
And when your final hour comes—
when the room is quiet,
and no child calls your name,
no hand holds yours—
may you remember the necklace
you asked to take back
as if you ever truly gave it.
You will go as you lived:
unmissed,
unmourned,
unmade by the love
you never had the courage to hold.
And we,
the children you forgot,
will carry on—
proof that you
were never the source of our strength,
only the echo
we learned to live without.