Palm Sunday, 2009

This will be the twentieth Palm Sunday after my father died (All the importance we put in a day). “Sunday’s coming,” he used to say In the evenings, preparing to preach. He was fifty one; another month He would have been fifty two. We plodded through that Holy Week; By Maundy Thursday we were driving home; Good Friday, watched them veil the cross; And Saturday, turned the television on To see March Madness with brother Josh Blowing a horn with the Illini band. “Sunday’s coming,” Dad used to say, As if every day were Saturday. Another two months and brother Dan Would graduate from college, Dad’s college, his old alma mater From thirty years before. It felt to us Like Dad was there all over again. And suddenly it’s twenty years ago, Twenty years of Sundays coming. As Dad would say, I’m doing okay. But it will be harder at number twenty five When I will be fifty one.