Everything is After

It was after
 talking with seniors about

the genius of Huxley and Orwell,

chatting with the staff over bag lunches about

last night’s game, checking my emails,

showing a team of boys how to run a

better out-of-bounds play, and driving home

through a northern Michigan winter wonderland

that I learned Dad had “taken a turn for the worse”

while the rest of my day unfolded as if

nothing had changed.

It was after
 the quick trip to the store before scrambling

to visit my fading father that I walked into a kitchen

where my family had also turned worse, immobilized by

the whisper from the telephone announcing that 

everything had changed.

It was after
his funeral that we drove to his grave,

achingly numb, tossing red dirt into a six-foot abyss, 

doing everything - anything - with him for the last time,

retreating to church for the strength of faith and family,

facing nothing and everything alone. 

Now everything is after.

- on the 11^th anniversary of my father’s death.