Papa's moles

Mom was wearing her favorite brown Scottish wool sweater. "Papa Saul's sweater" she tells me. "It's my favorite."

"But thee has Papa's moles." she says
"that's a more favored gift."

I am falling back in time.
I can remember this so clearly. I am 3 or 4.
He is sitting in his big leather square backed chair.
I am in his lap.
I press the moles on his face. One just over the inside
of an eyebrow the other on his chin, under his lip.

Each press elicits a different response.
His tongue comes out.
He says "Whir whir whir beep beep beep"
or
his eyelids flutter very fast up and down.

It is very funny.
I cannot stop laughing.

Now I am back. Sitting with mom in the hospital room
the snow falls outside the window.

All my life (since they appeared in my teens and twenties)
I've hated these two lumps on my face. Colorless, not like Papa's
big brown ones, but there.

I smile to thing that I am finally, after all these years
making peace with my own face.

I smile, thinking of Papa and those
gleeful moments
in his lap
in his chair
in his world.

And I am glad.

A face is not
what we think it is.