​but i know you were the epitome of snow falling on rooftops
slowly, softly but 
determined, persistent


i learn about you through nostalgia, fragments of memories,
recountings of the way you would hold your ground
your sweet tooth, the fact you knew what you liked and what you didn’t
and you wouldn’t hesitate to let anyone know this, just like me  
your stubbornness and mine linked, like impossible constellations
and i reckon with my existence as a following of yours ceasing


my parents were told that they could never have children
rounds of ivf, failure after failure
being told that i was a miracle, my existence paved after yours


i will come to learn that you loved christmas
the way you would have tubs of christmas chocolates for kids to nibble away at
everything about the holiday, 
specific and special and planned out in intricate detail
it will seemingly all make sense, now, how my dad elongates the holiday
from the middle of october right up until christmas day, 
him asking for my christmas wishlist in october


dad will always pull out the carousel christmas decoration,
the one which you used to have in your house described to me in ornate detail,
so that i feel that i had many christmases with you myself


and the santa claus decoration that sits on the table next to my dad, 
a decoration older than my own existence, 
something i am told that you were alive to see, to know about, 
and so this decoration feels like you immortalized
dad will slot a tiny plastic book into santa’s hands, causing something to happen in the mechanics 
santa now begins to ‘read’ the story, and his voice is robotic,
weathered by thirty years, but loving and sentimental


santa will talk of the joy of gift-giving and of friendship
and of love at christmas, family, 
generosity, care, kindness 


my dad is impatient, yet this santa decoration is something different, 
so he waits for santa to finish reading,
before he will take out the one plastic book from santa’s hand
replace it twice more to hear three separate stories
and i am in awe of the way that his fingers are so nimble, delicate, 
and at the end of the stories, dad always has tears in his eyes


it feels deathly sad, heartbreaking
frightening, to see your own dad cry
and there will always be lump in my throat at this point
​

hello,  hello,  hello lump
i will wonder how i can cry at something which i never knew
and to love something which i will never see

​​November 25th, 2022