Undone ribbons

The Eighties. Just another memory that refuses to erase itself off.

Alan in a white suit, a nose that ran most of the year and a candle lit chocolate cake waiting to blow his five years away.

I hand over a prized gift (prized by me)… a box of chocolate covered nuts.

He looks sidelong at it and then treats it like it didn’t matter much. He wheels around holding a walkie talkie doll his ‘French’ cousin had gifted to him.

I stand twirling at the undone ribbons of my gift.

An evening done in quiet sense of neglect perhaps bordering on rejection I spend one of my quietest evenings at dad’s knees.

He looks down twirling one of my unruly curls, “What’s the matter?”

I didn’t need to tell him much; he was one of those dads who knew it when you blink away an unshed tear.

He repeats till he feels my smile against his hands, “A gift is free…you expect nothing back when it is a gift from the heart.”

Years down I wait holding a gift from the heart.

I feel a vacuum as the gift is taken with reluctance, with a formality of just a given.

I trace steps back to what was neither home nor dwelling.

I re-hear a lost voice repeating “A gift…expects nothing...”