Slivers of Time

Roby took me and my mother out to dinner tonight. I ordered stake tips, which were cooked just right- medium rare, and charred on the surface.

Afterwards we stopped by my Aunt and Uncle's house to see my cousin, Tara, who is in town from Ohio. I haven't seen her, or her kids, in over a year, and the children have really grown (like children tend to do).

"Come look at these pictures, Mike," Tara said. I followed her into the den.

She grabbed a stack of old pictures, and we started flipping through. There we are, all dressed up for Halloween- cute kids in costumes without anything on our mind except how much candy we'll be able to rake in from the neighborhood.

The more pictures we looked at, the farther back in time we went. There was a Christmas from the 80's, with frizzy perms and rat tails. We came to a poker game that, judging by the gaudy clothing, had to take place in the 70's. Chips are on the table, and there is my father, mustache and big cigar, peering down at his cards.

My father loved poker his whole life. He saw it as a game of strategy and psychology, where the best man will win in the long run. When a young man, he entertained dreams of becoming a professional poker player, although he stuck to his accounting business. Regardless, he always went to his weekly poker game, and once retired, made plenty of trips to Foxwoods to test his skills. It was a passion for him, like hunting and sports are for other men. Even during his last couple months, when he was too weak to leave the house, he was able to enjoy playing online poker- a respite from the fatigue and illness.

And there he was in the photo, frozen in time: young, healthy, doing what he loved.

We finished looking at the pictures, and I left soon after. But my thoughts still linger on that photo, a piece of time stolen from decades ago, showing my father, forever smoking a cigar while playing cards.