A glider chair sits in our house, mostly unused now. It’s just fabric and wood, but it holds midnight feedings, whispered promises, and the version of me who learned how to be a father through grief. Some objects are more than objects. They are witnesses.
For years, this house has been an open circuit. Not just electrically, but internally. I taught myself how to harness the sun. No one in my bloodline had done that before. What began during cancer and survival ended today with a system coming online, and a nervous system finally exhaling. This was not a hobby project. It was a break in the lineage.
I went papa bear because I had to. I escalated because my daughters needed me to. The system doesn’t care—but I do.
The tornado missed us by less than a block. The damage, the chaos, the grief—it was all just down the street. We were spared. And somehow, that made it harder to hold. I spent the next morning walking the neighborhood, trying to make sense of what it means to survive.