David Colodney<\/p>\n
<\/br>
\nJonathan spoke openly about his father\u2019s death,
\nthat he didn\u2019t have to worry about his dad\u2019s speechless
\nsort of pain anymore, the inaudible facial grimaces
\ndoing all the complaining his voice refused to.
\nAnd Jonathan told me his mom would be fine in time,
\nshe would stop crying herself to sleep every night,
\nshe would one day be able to stand in her and his father\u2019s
\nbedroom, look in the wood-framed mirror above the bathroom vanity
\nand not see George standing behind her, his burly bear arms
\nenveloping her Victorian waist.
\n<\/br>Yes, mom would be fine, Jonathan said, life would one day turn normal,
\nand for him, on the nights he missed his father the most, he could look
\nto the skies and see one exploding star that would guide him
\nto where his father was in heaven. Or that he could always put in an old
\nVCR tape of his dad clowning around in a Gators hat or Dolphins t-shirt
\nand it would be almost like having him back.
\n<\/br>And he told me not to worry either. The weight now lifted,
\nnone of us had to coordinate shuffles from doctor to doctor,
\nconsult to consult, chemo visits where yesterday\u2019s hopes got swallowed
\nby today\u2019s despair, low blood counts or rampant fever out of nowhere.
\n<\/br>Jonathan looked at my empty glass, placed on the kitchen table
\nbetween us, said I should get another one, and I got up,
\nkissed the top of his head,
\nstumbled out of the kitchen, past the mourners
\nwhispering clich\u00e9s in the living room,
\nslammed the bathroom door
\nand cried for Jonathan
\nnow man of the house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
David Colodney Jonathan spoke openly about his father\u2019s death, that he didn\u2019t have to worry about his dad\u2019s speechless sort of pain anymore, the inaudible facial grimaces doing all the complaining his voice refused to. And Jonathan told me his mom would be fine in time, she would stop crying herself to sleep every night, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":540,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-written-by"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/540"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions\/437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}