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My parent taught me something recently without meaning to teach it, or maybe exactly meaning to. He is not fragile in the way of illness, but in the way of someone who carries everything alone and keeps measuring whether what he carries is enough. I watch him do this and it makes me want to move toward him, to catch him before he falls, to know what he needs before he asks. I told him I was doing this as a way of staying present, and he said: that's what waiting is. Not standing still. Not absence. Waiting is presence that doesn't reach before it's called.