Dad
by William Crisp
My Dad passed away at seventy-one years of age the other day- there is a part of me that expected him to beat yet another challenge and call me so we could laugh about it. But my phone is quiet and my doorstep is empty; it’s starting to feel permanent. He beat this once before and I had gotten so used to him overcoming and succeeding that I guess I came to expect the impossible, too.
Not long ago he told me a story of his youth. Of how on his first high school job my grandfather took him to the steel mill, where his job was to separate metal pieces from snagging into balls so they could fit into the shredder. The dangerous job was mostly done with a heavy steel rake and shredded your hands and upper body.