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Apr 2, 2026
My Father’s Body
My Father’s Body
00:00
02:00
Transcript
0:00
My father's body, confronting my father's body in exquisite silence, alone in the vast emptiness of a small room in the funeral home. His rigid body, his eyes diminished, sunken, closed tight like the fists of a child.
0:18
His feet were exposed and cold outside of the blanket covering his body. I spoke not to him, for I was all too aware of his absence, but to his memory. This fragile new thing like a soap bubble on the fingertip,
0:34
beheld in my mind with the care of a new father holding his first child. I promised to try to live up to his example, like a constellation of myths surrounding my unsure navigation.
0:49
I promised to keep his memory alive, like an exiled country within me. I promised to remember his counsel, like a weighty royal letter stamped closed in red wax.
1:01
I spoke to his memory as a father, how our fragile persona fades and fate frees us from our masks. The final fact of our body remains, remains of our dreams turned to ashes.
1:16
I spoke to his memory as a son, serene sphinx sleeping, dreaming of particles. The sun god pulls his chariot across the mind sky into the evening of regret as resentment fades with the twilight.
1:31
The skull sinks like a setting sun over the body of the earth until peace settles in the land of memory. I spoke to his memory as a friend. Face to face we prattled about the prodigal son's return.
1:47
Face to face we enthused over his eighty-yard shot on the ninth hole for an eagle. Face to face we chatted, basking in each other's presence, smiling so close to our mortal bodies.
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