a fund he’d been quietly building for thirty,
for the art school he’d forbidden,
with a note that said: don’t be gray like me; be bright like you.
He spent Eric’s childhood dimming him.
He spent his own last year building a way to say sorry.
And he left the apology sewn into a suit so loud
that only a son brave enough to wear it
would ever find the love inside.
Eric wore the red.
He found the letter.
And the brightest boy in our family
finally learned the
