A heart attack

We were in your car when I last saw your dad.

He was striding along,

the world ahead of him,

determined,

unstoppable,

the way he'd described himself walking through the mid-day heat in Syria

when everyone else was sensibly resting:

this little man,

walking pad-pad-pad with a familiar stride I know so well

from your pad-pad-padding beside me,

going I don't know where,

I suspect he didn't even know himself,

the walk the thing,

rather than the arrival,

though now he has arrived.