Peter Newton

It's Up to You

Out of nowhere, Dad says, "today my mother would’ve been a hundred years old." We reminisce about her life in Indiana. The struggle she never spoke about, how she made her way pregnant and alone up to Detroit at the height of The Great Depression. Her love of Pall Malls, poker and beer out of a can. He says, not really sad, more amazed at having realized something he never could’ve guessed until this moment. He says, about his mother and I know he means all mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, everyone who has gone before us. He says: it never hurts less. Just less often. It’s up to you. Sometimes you think you’re more holes than whole.

winter afternoon
my father explains
the strength of a pawn