treatswords

My parent’s hair is graying.

I see thin silver strands hanging from their roots.

My dad has a silver beard, I see him for the first time in a year and it startles me as it brushes against my cheek.

When did he grow older?

I feel my chest tighten at his new wrinkles, the ever-darkening bags beneath his eyes.

Mom is dying her hair platinum.

“It’ll help blend the grays.”

She tells me.

We go for a hike to the beach.

I notice her limping as we peak into the light house perched on the rocky coastline.

She catches the worry in my eyes, I’m sure it sparkles in the sun.

“My hip, I have arthritis in it. The doctor told me I need a hip replacement.”

This bothers me more than it should.

I imagine my mother’s bones rubbing together, a squeal that hurts my teeth coming from her aching hip.

When did she grow older?

I can see it when I look at old pictures.

Their smooth faces then, heads of colorful hair.

Dad with a blonde mullet, mom with dark hair frizzed with a pick and a gallon of hairspray, standing up to the moon.

I’m sure in these photos, they thought they’d grow old together.

Do hearts ever really disconnect?

I imagine a red line connecting them.

His stretching to the mountain peak where his eyes soak in the Sunday hike’s view.

Mom’s tying a knot around her in the living room as she rushes her golden doodle out the door.

They spent a life together and now they are growing old apart.

I see the way my dad acts with kids, guiding them onto his shoulders the way he did with my sister and I, feet dangling, jelly shoes leaving dirt marks on his chest.

I imagine him, playing with my children one day, out in a large yard somewhere.

His gray whiskers leaving red spots on their cheeks, his wrinkled hand holding theirs.

It’s sweaty inside those deep lines, but they don’t mind. They squeeze tighter and wipe their hands on their pants later.

I can see my mom with them too.

Holding my newborn in her arms, rocking back and forth in the dimly lit living room.

“Shh, shh, shh, mommy and daddy are sleeping little one.” She whispers. Tiny fists filled with gray curly hair.

The idea of them growing older keeps me up some nights. I roll around, unable to understand the hole their absence would create.

Unconditional love is hard to come by. But they have willingly provided me with heaps of it since the day I was born. To imagine them and that love no longer here, fills me with a crippling sadness that feels impossible to move through.

I remember when my dad lost both his parents, finding him beneath the tree in the front yard.

He was crying in his hands, body bent like a weighing branch.

The idea of him grieving alone, stung me like a sharp papercut in-between my fingers.

I ran to him.

We held one another like that for a while.

I caught his sobs into my jacket, and he caught mine in his pull over sweatshirt.

That day we couldn’t find my uncle.

Later he came to the house with dried sweat all over his body, out of breath.

We heard from the neighbor that they saw him across town, he’d been walking all day.

Lacing the town with his grief, unable to stop moving his feet. If he stopped, the pain would be too much, so he spread it around the small town he grew up in, tying it in a silver bow.

I think I will be like that too, wandering aimlessly, a tail of grief behind me.

Living far away from my parents makes me feel like I am wasting precious time.

I’d trade everything I own for the gaps in-between seeing them to be filled with memories of us together.

They are my home.

I walk in the front door and feel a deep relief. Taking my shoes off, curling up on the sofa.

The kitchen painted yellow, my mother’s touch, dad’s old but trusted pots and pans fill the cupboards, grandma’s old mixer is on display.

I get up and lock the door, deciding I will stay here until I too turn silver.

But despite how long I stay, my home will continue aging.

The wood will wrinkle further, the roof will inevitably sag.

And eventually, I will have to accept the bones that will always be my home.