My father's grandma died in 1917

An envelope with black borders came

“Mom is dead, and I don't have a black dress”

my grandma cried

“You can borrow mine”, said a neighbour woman

My father, born in 1904,

passed in 1992

I visited him at the hospital

where he lay a couple of weeks

at the end

He was already unconscious when I came

Then I was called in after he died

My son, seven years old, waited in the rented car

down below in the hospital lot

He couldn't bear meeting his dead Grandpa

Some years earlier, in 1989,

I interviewed Dad on tape

He was a very good storyteller

and gave me lots of inside information

from his long life,

after later transfer amounting to three full CDs

I hear him talk, breathe, and light his pipe

now and then,

mostly from the Cloud,

though I keep the CDs up on the shelf too

When the Soviets launched their Sputnik

in October 1957,

Daddy and I went out into a field at night,

throwing our heads back,

searching the skies,

and yes, we spotted the moving star

across the heavens

Dad had allowed himself a rare drink

That almost never happened,

but he felt the significance of the moment

He held my little hand out there in the dark

and laughed as the Sputnik passed