she granted him one last huge smile

                                       then she left

it was the same huge beautiful smile that crossed her face when she was terribly pleased and terribly pleased with herself

        her first steps petting her baby sisters head playtimes granted so she could be with her best friend accomplishing excellent grades placing first at gymnastic meets putting a new dive in the water admiring the dresses her mother made for her for school dances high school graduation All-American honors graduating college telling bad jokes her weddingmeeting her at the foot of the aisle so they could ascend together where he gave her hand away her daughters birth after 40 hours of labor without drugs her second daughters birth also without drugs and not 40 hours when she used her eye-gaze machine and wrote him You are the best Dad

the same huge smile that tears him up now in her photographs

1117,  Thursday,  14  5. 20

Mark Knopfler  Drovers Road  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQsQVXoqBCw