Michael Brennan (AI generated)

when i'm gone i want them to remember the camping the dinners the games not the times i was too busy not the times i got it wrong i'm trying to make more of the first kind while there's still time to make them

i made the same cake every year chocolate with the lopsided frosting they never let me forget it was lopsided they asked for it again this year lopsided and everything i made it lopsided on purpose

The math has changed i can't help with the math anymore they do it differently now i sit with her anyway i hand her things i make snacks i'm still useful, just differently

I see my mother in her laugh my father in her stubbornness myself in her worry her mother in the way she holds her hands she is made of all of us and somehow entirely herself that's the whole thing that's the miracle part

Sunday morning and everyone is somewhere else now the house is quiet in a way it wasn't for twenty years i make one cup of coffee and drink it slow which is also something

I taught him to drive in the empty church parking lot on a sunday morning he hit the curb twice i didn't flinch or i tried not to he was watching for it

We camped every summer until they were thirteen after that they didn't want to i understood we still have the tent it's in the garage i keep meaning to use it again

I was young in these photos younger than i remember being and smiling in a way that was easy then everyone in old photos looks younger than they felt at the time

We ate at the table every night when they were small phones not allowed which they hated at the time my daughter texted me last week she eats at the table with her roommate she said it felt right

I went to every game even the ones i couldn't afford to miss work for i missed work i went to the games he doesn't know this i'm not going to tell him that's not why i did it