Henry? Father? Papa? Dad? What name
To call you now? It’s fifty years and more
Since you died. I was a child, half-grown
At twenty-two, and now I’ve aged a score

Of years beyond what you ever lived. A time
Of mystery, that you’ve become my child.
I’ve tales of World War Two, your hero son,
Family annals when fortune frowned or smiled;

Grandsons and daughters you never knew who were born,
Lived and died, triumphed and fell. And would
It make us friends? Would I be the son
I could and should have been? Back then I played

A part, a role. Today I’d try to be
A simple, candid, sharing, questing “me”.

Comments

My Dad’s father was Henry Bissell Alvord who died of pneumonia in 1939, some four years before Penicillin was first used in clinical practice in the United States.

[John Alvord 11/15/2025]

->