Page 15 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

—T-shirt

DIXIE

“Pops,” Pru asked as she crossed her ankles on top of the coffee table, “didn’t you tell me that all your important dates happened around Christmas?”

I nodded.

“You’re not planning to die on Christmas, are you?”

I chuckled. “I’ll make it until y’all at least open your presents tomorrow afternoon.”

I hoped.

That would suck for them to come over here expecting one last Christmas with me to find me dead.

“Don’t give up until I can bring my kids over here one last time to see you. They love you with all of their heathen hearts,” Phoebe ordered. “They get it from their father.”

Bayou tugged his wife closer, then whispered something in her ear.

The move was so reminiscent of the very move I’d done with Mary that a wave of grief hit me.

I wanted that back.

I missed my wife.

In all the years that she’d been gone, I’d never been tempted to look for another.

I couldn’t.

How could I even consider someone else when Mary was the one person in the world that I wanted, and couldn’t have? Anyone else would be a pale comparison to her.

The only thing that kept me going these last few years was seeing Bayou and Hoax start their families.

I enjoyed watching these two sisters completely wreck the boys’ lives.

Not in a bad way.

In a way that I knew that they needed.

The only bad thing was they lived pretty far away from me, so I didn’t get to see them growing their families as often as I liked.

Sure, I had other grandchildren that I loved dearly. And even great-grandchildren.

But Hoax and Bayou were special.

They were my little sidekicks when they were growing up.

And they reminded me so much of Mary that I just wanted to be around them.

My children were spread all across the country now. I never got to see them as much as I’d wanted.

But these two made it a point to spend time with me, giving an old man a little light in his life as he waited to meet his wife on the other side.

“One last one before we head home,” Bayou said, standing up. “What’s this one about?”

I looked at the baby covered in powder, and laughed.

“That’s your uncle.” I chuckled.

---