Ghosty Filled up the House

This is how I remember you. While you were dying your wife said, “He was a cop in New York City.” The assistant hospital chaplain said, “Wow. He is a hero.” She stared at my sister and me expecting another example of a life well-lived. I could not come up with anything. My sister said, “He took up a lot of space.”

Everyone in the ICU (your wife, your friends, your preacher, the chaplain) nodded as if this was a normal thing to say. A friend said, “Yes, he did have a big personality.” I looked at your shrunken dying body. You used to be a big man with broad shoulders. You filled in the cracks of every love relationship my sister and I have ever had. Your drunken voice on my answering machine last Father’s Day got louder and louder. You got bigger and bigger in my heart until you popped it when I was ten. When I was a kid you were larger than life, sometimes a legend. But, Ghosty, you were never my hero.

I am still waiting for something to say to the chaplain. My unspoken answer fills up my mouth. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.