Monday, October 25, 2010

"Your Dad's Dead"

What's in a word? A word is just a semi-arbitrary collective of any number of 26 symbolic options of sounds. The sounds are then assigned meaning and passed on to each generation. Languages cycle, they grow. They become archaic.

Three words changed the course of my life. nothing significant until placed in the same sentence. Words comprised of no more than 4 letters of the English alphabet. "Your dad's dead."

To hear those words spoken through the phone from a relative also trying to cope is disheartening. To have to repeat those same words, not once but twice, is gut-wrenching. Especially when you are a state away relaying a life-changing message to your younger siblings through telephone instead of holding each one in person offering physical condolences.

Your direct paternal biological contributor has ceased to exist in this current metaphysical plane.

More words. bigger. With substance. means the same thing but offers dilution. Time to translate. Absorb. Reflect. Doesn't change the outcome of repeating. My dad is still dead.

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