Living

This morning, I reached for a simple grey pair of cotton socks.

Printed on them was a single word.

Living.

I know when I got them.

I know where they came from.

I know why they mattered.

Those answers have never changed.

What I wasn't prepared for were the what-ifs.

A single word.

A simple pair of socks.

And suddenly, a fifty-year-old man found himself standing still, holding them, with tears quietly finding their way to his eyes.

Sometimes memories do not arrive because we go looking for them.

Sometimes they are waiting patiently in the most ordinary things.