As I smell your parka, there are many hints of you that linger, Dad, after fourteen years. Holding your parka close, I smell the coffee that you drank, the bacon that you loved to eat, the cigarettes that you smoked, and the ever sweet cologne that went on every dawn. The smell takes me into your arms and into the comforts of deep love. As I touch your parka I feel your pain, the constrictions preventing your warm heart from an expanded life. I recall your dreams...I remember your hope and endurance. As I touch your parka I touch what is possible in my own life; I hold fast to my dreams and even tighter to hope.