THOUGH I CANNOT SEE THE SUN

When my dad turned twelve, he watched his father drown in a whirlpool in the Orange River. Decades later, I watched my own father disappear into late nights at the Majestic Hotel. I can still hear the muffled horn of his VW Kombi calling me to sit on his lap and steer the long van up our steep driveway.

I once befriended a street child named Johnson who sniffed glue to forget his hunger. A man plucked out his right eye with scissors over scraps of food. On Saturdays I played soccer with Johnson and other street kids. He played barefoot and did somersaults on an empty stomach and prayed without asking God for anything.

Two weeks after my wife gave birth to our second daughter, nurses loaded them into a helicopter while the doctors admitted they had no answers. I rode home on my motorcycle and screamed inside my helmet until my throat gave out. Yesterday after dinner I watched that same little girl hit forehands and backhands against the garage door, chasing sprayed shots down the mountain road.

In the evenings we walk to the cul-de-sac and count cats and avocados on the trees.

My friend saved five years for her husband’s dream birthday trip to Vegas. He died in her arms on their first night in the hotel room. I don’t know how she made it home. Today at lunch, she smiled, saying, “You know I’m putting five hundred dollars on my 49ers to win the Super Bowl this year.”

At dawn, coming down the stairs, I often look back at the dark overhang of the mountain. Though I cannot see the sun touch its peak, I know that it does.