Papa's Keys

Ever been driving and a thought just hit you. You don't know where it comes from or why it choses the particular moment to stream into your mind. Some times they are happy thoughts and other times they reduce you to tears. Today it was both.

I had taken Callie (the baby dog) to get a bath and was coming home when it rushed in and sat down beside me, begging me to remember. There was no reason or rhyme. Papa's keys.

When I was little, I didn't see them hanging up very often. They were always in his pocket. A small set of keys considering everything that they opened. I don't remember him giving them to anyone. If you needed into something with his keys, he would unlock it for you. They were his keys.

After he got sick, didn't drive anymore, or get around anymore, they hung on a hook by the door. That's the first time I remember being able to hold them. They were smooth and almost soft from years of use, his fingers working them. They were the keys to everything he had built in his life. The store and house. Gates on the farm. Garages of stuff, important things. Then there are the mysterious keys that he only knew what they belonged to.

There is power in those keys. Papa's power. Power that isn't merely given because you hold the keys. It has to be earned, like Papa earned it. If only I knew how to.

So they hang on the wall and ever so often I touch them. Papa's keys.