The Red Ball

David found the ball in the snowbank, under the weeping willow. It was red, glistening with sun-melted snow.

He stooped to pick it up, long arms reaching it before his back bent too far down. It was frozen hard as a rock, cracked in places from the years it had spent in the wild, lost.

He'd been six years old when he'd lost the ball out in the brush in his parents' five acre property. It hadn't been snowing then. It had been the clearest sunny day. He played catch with his father and, after a particularly silly throw, the ball simply vanished into nothing.

They had looked everywhere for what must have been hours. He'd cried like the end of the world.

He never cried like that again. Strange, how something like a ball can do that to a kid.

He wished he could have cried more. When his father went off to the war. When his high school sweetheart ended things. When his old dog finally got too old.

His father got cancer last year. David was with him as he died in the hospital. He stood there in the service, moments before escaping to this snow covered back lot, not a tear on his face to vent the compression in his chest.

As he stood there holding the long-lost ball, he remembered his father's arms hugging him, telling him it would be alright.

Then, he was six again. He'd lost something, someone he loved.

And he cried.