Tomorrow it will be seventy days since I last saw his eyes.
Even though they were a bit wild with fear and pain, they were still his eyes.

I know he took them with him, so why do I find myself seeing with them?

See that new corporate jet coming in for a landing so close to the intersection? It's got all kinds of funky wing and fuselage configurations...and suddenly I see it with the analytical eyes of the avid scientist and aviatriophile (sp?), and I know that a single 4 second glance would have led to a half hour of exposition and educated guessing on the whys and wherefores of this freak flying thing. He loved that kind of stuff.

Take a look at the rolling hills of the Lincoln National Cemetery near Joliet. See how he appreciates the order and precision of the place juxtaposed against the divine chaos of wildflowers and evergreens. I look at the seals of the service branches carved in plaques at the memorial pavilion, and despite my quasi-pacifist cynicism about them, his eyes, my eyes, pool with tears.

But see there, that man who shuffles backwards at the intersection with his sign and bucket. At first glance, it's the same mixture of pity and inner struggle. Do I give him anything? And then I see the flash of aluminum under the bench he has been resting on between the long lights...unmistakably the beer that made Milwaukee famous...and I see him with eyes of disdain, even if just for a moment...and I hear the judgmental voice of the one who is gone.

How do I do it? How do I see with the eyes...carry the mantle he passed to me...look through the eyes that were always attendant, always watchful for the needs of those he loved...ever ready to protect, to seek out threats and avoid life's potholes....always seeking, despite the cataracts of prejudices that weren't excised, to do the right thing....Can I use those eyes and not be clouded by those same prejudices...or am I not really seeing with his eyes, but perceiving with his mind?..that center of his contradictions...and mine. And is that voice I hear--the interpreter of visions--a legacy or a hereditary disease?

Will that voice listen when I try to reason with it, like he sometimes would and sometimes wouldn't? Can I yet convince that voice that N***** and S**** are words that say more about him than the people he tried to describe? Or are those battles to be set aside...grace having declared an eternal truce?

I miss him...and yet I struggle with him still. At least it keeps him close.

And you know...as I was watching the last Republican debate...I could have sworn I smelled Aramis...