Robert H. Cantley.
He is a great grandfather.
She drove north every young summer to visit him and the woman with him.
He’s like the dad she didn’t have because somebody ran a red light.
They shared homemade dinners and wine and would wind miles of stories at the stove every night.
They moved their lives over for that bright-eyed girl.
They believed in seeds and a harvest they wouldn’t live to see.
Sun up, top down he drove a 1953 Chevy Corvette, baby blue, shiny and cool.
He sold it with light in his heart when the heavy bubble burst.
He rolled right over the worst months in a 1994 pickup painted like raw milk.
He found the 4×4 far better for first-time-fishing in the mountains with great-grandkids and when they weren’t looking the lake shiny and cool would fill his eyes bouldered and blue and make him cry like a baby.
“He drives me crazy.” His wife will say.
He won’t argue with his lady. And he never says why.
He just makes music with his eyes.
“He loves like heaven does.”
He’s a stake driven in the ground his family goes around.
The bright-eyed girl gave his name, to her first boy.
They sent her boy to pick up his old fashioned Ford, last year.
Single cab stick shift saddle blankets on the seats.
Pneumonia hit him in the chest like a cement truck.
Death is one helluva red light.
So I sit in his seat and drive.
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Did you know Randy Travis wrote a song about my great-grandfather?