Stone.

He stood near the old granite stone and could not for the life of him remember anything.

Not a word or a phrase or a smile; not anything. He just stood there resting the lower part of his thigh against that stone wondering who this man was.

Who did he claim to be?

Who did he tell the barflies that he was?

Who was he when no one was watching?

Did he stand on the French shores and cower; or did he lead men to their glorious ends?

Was he a farmer of the land?

Did he love a woman?

Was earth found under his nails?

Was he a man whom others were drawn to in such a way that women fell for him and men wanted to be him?

He didn't know and he never would.

This man that others told him to call father was a blank space in his mind of memories. He was a game of catch that was never thrown. He was a fixed flat tire that never got fixed. He was the advice that he so desperately needed on that cold night. He was the man of whom he had only dreamed.

As he reached his car and opened the passenger side door a small boy climbed into the seat asking, "Who was John Cavenaugh Daddy?"

"He was someone that I wish I knew William."

And as they passed through the steel gates the rain began to fall and he flicked the wipers on. And then, in his mind, he told himself that he would fix those flats and play those games of catch and give the advice that young men need. He would be the man who upholds young ones dreams and hopes.

Our Fathers.

We are not our fathers.

But we could be.

We may grow to be.

We are the pieces that they were bred from. But we are not the whole of them.

Our fathers come from stale bread and warm milk and rusted gears. They come form places like farms and mills and workshops. Places that we do not know. Places that remind us of far off lands vast with foliage and hungry lions.

We expect them to know us when they barely know themselves. We expect them to help us grow into men when they are still only little boys themselves; lost in their mothers aprons.

They are married, or divorced, but continue to sit in worn out front porch chairs day dreaming of the siren that lured them in the days of their youth.

They think back to when, in the corner of a college bar, they saw their wives for the first time. How her hair fell on her tan shoulders and how no other girl in the room existed at that very moment.

Our fathers minds are clouded with these things and yet, we still expect and call upon them to lead and be mature and to rally us together in times of need and strife. But they are just men. They are just boys.

Boys hiding under the pale flowered patterns of their mothers aprons.