The Rocking Chair Waiting in Blue

I found my grandfather's last voicemail three years after he died, buried in an old phone I thought

I'd lost. His voice cracked through the speaker like sunlight breaking through storm clouds,

and suddenly I was seventeen again, sitting in his workshop that smelled of sawdust and coffee.

He was calling to tell me he'd finished the rocking chair he promised for my future kid.

The one I told him I'd never have because I was too scared to bring a child into this broken

world. I remember his disappointment that day, how his shoulders sagged like old

curtains. In the voicemail, he said something I never heard him say in person.

He told me fear is just love that hasn't found its courage yet. That every generation