The absence was arresting, confronting, obscene. The anima had flown, the ka was roosting in whatever place it calls home. A diminished dressing gown crumpled on the bathroom floor mocked a child’s memory.
Here he taught me to shave. Aware – as always! – of the gravity of the occasion and heavy with responsibility, he guided my first scrapes and razor cuts. Before that, long before, the first shadow memories of a godlike man as he lathered the shaving cream and gave to me my first beard.
Kissing farewell I felt his stubble prickle my lips.