Father

The small room felt so much larger today to the man
propped on the bed in front of the lone window. He sensed a change in 
the wind coming through the flimsy curtains that hung down in tatters 
behind him. The room had acquired a brightness notwithstanding the 
peeling paint on the walls and Sid, as people called him, felt on top 
of the world. His 19 year old grandson was coming to visit. It had been 
15 years since he had seen Aly, 15 long years he had spent in this 
small one room house with no one to smile and tell him he was loved. He 
chuckled to himself as he thought of the time when his grandson had been 
born a tiny premature baby. 

He had been waiting outside the labor room when the nurse came out
smiling and holding a tiny bundle in her arms. He had suddenly been 
transported back 28 years to a similar place with a different nurse and 
a different baby-his son. It seemed like yesterday when he had held his 
first and only son in his arms and gazed down into his puffy face. Now 
he was smiling down at what he had helped to create-his grandson. A 
beautiful baby with his high nose that had run in the family for years. 
Sid smiled now as he thought of the day they had brought him home and 
his wife had laid him down in the pretty little room specially 
decorated for him. Flowers bloomed in every corner of the room and 
stuffed toys smiled down at the newest member of the family. 





To be continued...