Fingerprints

As we grow older, life takes us on a path of twists and turns.

Unfortunately, we often lose track of people that are important to us.

People who were close once. 

People we engaged with every day.

We don’t purposefully stop paying attention, sadly it just happens.

We stop looking, stop seeing, and slowly things fade away.

It had been a long time since I TRULY saw him. 

It's been a long time since I really looked at the details that time has created.

To say I was surprised at how he looked would be an understatement.

Although I see him often, I never really looked or focused on the details. 

A quick nod or acknowledgement and back to life.

The memory of him that I carry with me, is as a younger man, stuck in his youth as thought time had somehow frozen. 

He was thin then.

 Not muscular by any means but tall, sporting a look that youth will afford those who lack the appreciation of what they have. 

A look they will someday miss.

 A look that seems to be here one day and is gone the next.

It was clear that time had taken its toll as it always does. 

Those features so clearly present in my memory are long gone!

His swagger that I remember from years ago has been replaced with a slowed gait, that sense of confidence seems to have faded with the passing of time.

When I recently took the time to look at his face closely, I almost didn’t recognize him. 

My memory of him was erased and reality quickly took its place.

Was he the same person I remember?

If his looks had changed that much, what else was different?

Although he looked different, on the inside was he still the same person I knew all those years ago?

 He may be the same person I remember him to be, but I feel the man of today has little in common with the man he was so long ago.

That person from years ago that I remember so vividly and that I can see so clearly,

NO as I look in the mirror, the only thing I seem to have in common with that young man from long ago. 

Are fingerprints.