“Come in, come in”   I urged the withered  old man standing outside my front door.  Rain pelted against his fragile hunched frame as the icy wind cut through my skin.  The mysterious man gingerly stepped through the threshold, into a warm, welcoming calm foyer.  Removing his scuffed, soaked fedora, he looked down at me with those once sharp blue eyes.  His smile, reaching some deep corner in my heart, creased every corner of his face and lit those knowing eyes.  “I am your Grandfather” he whispered.  Shocked, I stared at this crippled figure in amazement and hope.  My grandfather I thought, but how could that be…?  My poor grandfather has been dead for twenty years…

“Brace yourself” a song so innocently declares on the radio, yet my mind entangles into that idea. How do you brace yourself for something so imaginatively life altering it leaves you unsure of reality?  Just one word, one gesture, cracking destiny and leaving the atmosphere so thick it suffocates.  You stand broken open, vulnerable yet excited at the adventure the utterance brings.  Suddenly nothing before this has ever seemed to matter. Now every nerve in your body can feel the cool air wrapping around you, holding you tight in this frozen moment, as you realize that nothing will ever be the same.