Dad

My dads green eyes are twinkling at me, the creases around them thick with laughing.  His chest shakes and his belly sounds fill the air.  With childlike simplicity, he rocks back and forth, laughing for a full 5 minutes or more.  He has told a bad joke.  
Digging patiently in his garden, he attends to the bugs populating the place, the texture of the soil, the quality of a stem.  He has plowed and read and shopped and sorted for months preparing this garden, later in the summer it will produce lovely beets and eggplants.
Lying in his hospital bed, his body pushing for just a few more minutes of life, he hangs on with his particular sense of humor.  He hangs on until we are all present, and then he slips away, just like that, into the journey of a lifetime.
I see him in the clouds today, I saw him there yesterday and the day before.  He is still laughing, he is a jolly old elf, a dragon spirit, and there are hearts flying past in the sky.
I love you dad.