Dusty Blonde Hair

There are the watershed moments of grief that one expects and then there are those that catch you off guard.

It is an afternoon like so many others. Kenan and I are driving through downtown during lunch hour. We are detoured by road construction from our regular route to pick up Tamsen from school. While stopped at a red light, my eyes skim over the busy cityscape then lock in on a young man waiting on the corner. He is twenty something, attractive, well dressed, with dusty blonde hair. A car pulls up beside him. He smiles and embraces the woman getting out. My mind immediately races into the future - a future for Kenan that will never be. Before me is a mirage of potential and possibility shifting in the sunlight trying to take shape. There will be no culmination of collected moments to answer my questions: What will HE look like? Who will HE be? For a few seconds more I linger on the young man at the corner until the green lights snaps me back into the intersection. I look at Kenan in the rear view mirror. He is awake now in his car seat. No one wants a parent to project onto him what he isn’t and can never be, least of all Kenan.