Charlie

Charlie is dead.

Charlie, with his pants that were too tight, and his socks that came too high. Charlie, who didn't know what it was like to laugh moderately. Charlie, who awkwardly and cheerfully flailed his way down the river in an innertube, white legs gleaming brilliantly, like marble in the sun. Charlie, who so loved to air the French he knew, and who delighted in quizzing us on vocabulary. Charlie, so patient with his fatherless grand-daughter, loving her, raising her, making sure she never knew that the life she had was not ideal. Charlie, who would get up in church and talk on and on, but so earnestly that you couldn't fault him for going over time. Charlie, who with all his funny mannerisms was a father when he didn't have to be. Who drove our bus on mission trips and played cards with us and grazed his way down the potluck table and could never go anywhere without making at least half a dozen U-turns and who never got mad at me when I practiced my skills lifting his wallet. Charlie, who always kept a pocket full of mints that he would furtively pass around to us in the back of the sanctuary, his guilty smile hiding in his grey mustache.

Charlie, who is dead.

My mind instantly internalized it, shoved it aside, behind stacks of things to do and obligations and stuff. But grief shouldn't be something to be ashamed of, and I didn't want to do that to him. He's more important than that. It took me until the middle of Physio class later that morning, when I suddenly remembered him sneaking three of us out of work to go pick oranges in the jungle, and his funny giggle at how we'd outwitted "the grown-ups." Then the rest of the memories came spilling out, so fast. And I realized that he was actually, truly gone.

And then the tears came.

Oh, Charlie.