My son…

You did everything in squares. Four was your magic number, the one that calmed you, the one you divided everything by. It took your mother and I a few years to figure this out, how you slept better in the refrigerator box you made into a fort, and how fifty-six cheerios in your bowl went down without a tantrum.
 
We weren’t as smart as you, not by a long shot, but you helped us along. You made us better. And when we took that last trip together before you went to college, you mapped out the whole trip––a right turn only trip, until sixteen days later, we pulled into our driveway again. You said it was better than backpacking Europe with your friends.
 
Years later, you brought me here. After graduating architecture school and working in a design studio. We sat in front of the building you’d designed, on the perfectly placed benches, me on the yellow one, you on the green. I felt it like I never had before, the rightness, the peace.
 
My boy, after all these years it seems I’m still learning from you. 

apartments, bench, father son talks, sit, live