The Stranger Who Was Kind

The Stranger Who Was Kind

At the service there was a man I did not know
who had driven four hours because of a debt he said
that my father had done him something in 1981
and he had never properly paid the debt
he told me the story in the parking lot afterward
in the specific way that strangers talk about the dead
with a kind of freedom that the family does not have
unburdened by the weight of anything unsaid
the stranger who was kind told me something I needed
a face of the man I did not know had existed
the face of the father who was younger than my knowing
the man before I entered and he twisted
the dead have lives before us and we rarely know them
the people they were before we were the people we became
and the strangers at the services sometimes hold those lives
and offer them across the loss, across the blame
I am glad he drove the four hours
I am glad the stranger had the specific kindness to appear
I hold that photograph in my memory like currency
the young man who became my father, young and clear