I was never closer to him than during those few weeks, weeks that exploded like moments, when the language he had heard since birth promised to realize from his lips into our world as humidity will from stirred up air some dark April nights in North Texas. Those days he'd watch how my mouth formed words, inch his fat little hand to my lips, (so close right then), him believing it was just a matter of getting the mechanics right, making the jaw and teeth and tongue do their work. But communicating was more difficult than that, obviously, and he would learn that lesson most sincerely for having known me.
