I liked to watch him in his waiter white’s, resting on a wooden chair by the kitchen or wringing his hands, gleaning the movements of staff and patrons, towel slung over a shoulder. God knows all the jobs he once performed at his sixty-year-old restaurant, now reduced to swing man, simple gopher, ready to help where needed. I did hear that Billy Reed’s sold, so perhaps he retired, and I try to imagine a lazy Billy, waking up late, splashing water on his face, shuffling to

at twelve years old, I kept a diary for 12 months, every day scratching down the kids and people I met, sports played, schoolwork, mom and dad moments, a laundry list of activities in the packed timeline of a child’s day I notice now, I never wrote after supper, never sat in my room as bedtime loomed, never left emotional commentary, the classic time for reflection, the closed journal on my desk, sealed to my own depths a girl would have plowed into their secrets, used in

we measure human life by their accomplishments and the size of their heart although even with nothing significant given to the world, it’s love that holds the measuring stick not for the head held high for all it’s done but to calculate its width, its spread and girth, of the lives it’s touched