belonging

Belonging

I am sitting in the coffee shop with my Dad

Drinking a cup of coffee,

waiting to pick up my children

And I realized how good it is to belong to people

He has given his best years,

all of them,

To my Mom and me and my sisters and brothers

To care for us because we belonged to Him

There is a bond between us; a union of life

Part of my soul is inside of him

And part of his soul lives inside of me

I can't explain it, but that is how it is

We belong to one another

The same is with my dear one

We've been sharing love and joy and pain

Laughter and tears

Children and grandchildren now

For more than 25 years

Part of each of us lives inside the other

I'd like to explain this to my children

But I'm not sure they would understand it

It might sound more like restriction than

Realizing part of one's true self

Is to belong to another

But maybe when I am eighty

And we're sitting at the coffee shop or somewhere else

They will see what I see now

How good it is to belong.

Maybe they'll see it sooner than I did

-Dan Wills