Ah, Dad.

If anything was ever expected, it was your death. And what are the processes of grief, if not my bread and butter? Oh, we always fell short, course we did. We were always lagging behind the face of that clock. When I could admit, dripping in fear, that you were only weeks away from death, you were, in fact, days away. And when I could see you gasping for the straw, craning over for the last suckle on some warm beer and accept, finally, that we were in our last hours, we were minutes away. And when at the end, half joking, you asked me if you would be going 'up or down', I fell to pieces. You were not asking and, finally, after a lifetime, I had no vanity to even imagine an answer. You were just wrestling me, as ever, right to the end. There was nothing here but you and me, and death. And so at last you couldn't hold your head, and death came. It pulled you hard into the pillows but you never left me, you never turned to the wall, or said a prayer, no final moment for yourself, it was just you and me, forever and always.

Is love the only word for that? And then it was over. It was over.

Ah, Dad.

What next? Well what?

To Wittenberg.