Reaching (First Valentines Day After My Father's Death Twelve Days Prior)

Recent events hover over today
I’m still numb, reaching for words
I’m mad at myself for not talking to him more
Mad at him for not talking to me more
Mad at him for just giving up
And mad at the world for how helpless it all makes me feel
My pride in you and your hard work eclipsed by one phone call
A flower-smelling championship, forgotten
But there was a reason the first thing I did when I heard those words was reach for you
It is because you are the one I reach for 
The one I need, the object of all those clichés about love
You do, in fact, complete me
And if I had the words right now I could frame that in some metaphor
Telling you about the way we fit together but the words are not there
But the feelings of companionship and need and desire burn
A compelling to hold you close and to never let you go
An eruption of feeling in the mere nearness to you
And your scent and the way my arms wrap around your body
An animal requirement to have that closeness every day, 
You in my arms fragile yet strong and my arms strong yet grasping
A desire to crush you with my overwhelming tide of emotions
But I hold you clumsily – a child presenting a feather or a bird’s egg.
As I reach for you, first, every day. Not just in the ill light.

The Coffee Cup

I saw my father
In a dream last night
He stood there at the checkout
Buying a coffee cup
To donate to my charity drive
But he was much younger
The age I remember
Both my parents
So that every time I visit them
There is a little shock about
How much they have aged
It is the same shock
I have when I look into
A full-length mirror and wonder
About how much I've aged
And the weight I've put on
The only comfort now
Is that he will not be able to
Age any more

Charles Joseph Mihelic: A Life in Outline

It is with a heavy heart that we must share with the world the passing of Charles Joseph Mihelic, MD. On the second of this month, after a short illness, he slipped the confines of this mortal coil to challenge the deities of all canons to fistfights and matches of wits. We wish him well on his quest, but there are many here who mourn him. We have called him by many names: Joey, Chuck, Babe, Dad, ToeToe - maybe even Chas at a point in the 70s but a lot of things happened during the seventies that not everyone remembers. But we do know that in the seventies he met the love of his life on an April Day in a small town in Alaska. With her, Mary Douglass Bowman, he lived a life that would be hard to contain between the covers of a book, let alone be done justice within the limitations of this mournful missive. Any roll call of the lives he touched would be incomplete as he lived a life of service to the communities he lived in, seeing people sometimes in the worst day of their lives and using his training and native intelligence to save lives and try to mend what was broken. We can note those with holes in their hearts never again to be filled. Mary, with her constant companion gone. John Patrick Mihelic, a little brother now without his boyhood protector. Children Amanda Marie, Catherine Ann, John Edgar, and Norman Joseph left with only their memories. Grandchildren Bonnie, Joe, and Lilly for whom he will live through our stories. (Integrate this better w/ spouses and married names w/r/t genre conventions and those who proceeded in death).

We mourn Doctor Mihelic because of these stories. We mourn a man who saw the world as it was and tried to create a new reality around him. He did things his way. He did this in part because he had to. Born in the South End of Saint Joseph, Missouri, options were limited. You could work at the slaughterhouses, or you can seek your story in the wider world. His ticket was the military, signing up to serve his country in 1969.