January 19, 2013.
After work I drove to a member's house in North Minneapolis to have them sign a line on the title that they'd missed. It was very near to the cemetery, so I stopped by and happened to have my notebook on me. Here are the notes:

The earth that covers your grave is cracked and the flowers - two weeks in the winter's cold - are weary of their vigil and hang their chilly heads. I take the eucalyptus from the bedraggled bouquets knowing it will infuse my car with an exotic smell that will sooth as it needles my memories.

I don't stay long. Just long enough to be filled anew with the grief of losing you. I try to reconcile my right to feel this way against the memories of what we were not.

I know that we never really got much closer than arms length, and I know, too, that you wanted more. But I had no more to give you and I am reconciled to that in your death as I was in your life.

And yet, the child within me cries out "DADDY!" into the wind. The bare trees wave and the crows fly high, and no one hears. Not even you now...perhaps the only one who would have wanted to hear.