A moment, a glance, and all time stops,
Time stops for this moment to understand.
Within this same moment is another time,
A childhood of holiday memories
Filling the air around this face:
Christmas holidays,
Climbing on the old feeder,
Descending into the cellar world,
Wading, empty-hooked, in a pond
While his dad pulled in his 30th fish.
I am not yet old,
Yet he, younger than I,
Already is gone.
He knew how to live,
He knew important deeds:
To look you in the eye,
Say “I love you” with goodbye.
And here he looks again at me
from the face of this little boy.
I must live well and
be ready for my end.
I was out and about in town and this little boy and I met eyes. His face, his expression were, at least in that moment, just like my cousin, Dustin. This poem is a bit of an expression in words of what I felt when I saw my cousin in this little boy’s face. May the memory of Dustin, be eternal, like the thief’s words, “Remember me in Thy Kingdom.”