You notice your parents’ aging as you do your own:
Not at all, then in a photo, all at once.

There the pain of happiness fading:
The moment after the embrace,
The walk down the jetway,
The plane disappearing in clouds of blue.

Mom is holding Richard, rooted.
Dad has one arm around him, eyes half-closed—
The bliss of a moment long-awaited.
And though Richard won’t remember,
In some distant future fast approaching he will delight
That grandma and grandpa, long deceased,
Held him with a love so deep, it still
Defies that tender tyrant—time.