I can see his fingernail. It juts out of his finger, square, pink, healthy looking. It's square, a lot squarer than mine. Mine are more rounded like my mother's, except one. Which is on my little finger. That one nail somehow got there, a little part of him on my right-hand side.
From that nail I can see, his thumbnail, the rest of him grows. One arm, hairy as ever, thick dark hair that meant even at the beach he wouldn't get burnt, it acted like his kind of sunscreen. It was a skinny arm, an arm a bit like mine I suppose, although once he told me it had been a boxing arm.
Then to his chest. I can't remember much of that chest, except him squeezing me tight to it when I was upset about what we'd learned, and that even as I squeezed him tight, he was still as alone as any man can be. My Dad. Dying.
But then as we talked about it, we're all dying really. Only some more than others, and he's had a good life. I can't remembee most of those conversations we had now, they're written down into a book I kept at the time, a book I didn't read afterwards because it made me feel sad. That book is in my attic somewhere...
From that chest, also quite hairy, two small pink nipples pierce the side, then a belly that's become rounded with beer and with age, until it juts out past his trousers, comforting and warm, at one point if I hugged him I could rest my head on there like it was a pillow, and be comforted. But then he couldn't comfort me any more. This was life, pure and simple, and there was nothing either of us could do about it.
I suppose apart from those square finger and toenails, the particular shape of his foot, or the smile that started on his face and ended in a deep belly laugh that echoed up from somewhere great, somewhere that would make anyone near join in, infectious, his laugh. You couldn't help it. Now, I remember his head. Two tufts of gry/black hair, one on either side, the top bald, that was usually covered by more hiar, but this part he could remove at will, and would to our laughter and disdain, like at a certain birthday party of mine. Or dinner parties, a favourite party trick. His pate shone out with his wisdom and his greatness, as a little girl I knew no one could argue with him. Later on I knew they could argue, but probably not win, like with fights about silly things, things I can't even remember now. Then death won.
In that head was housed a whole world of wonderful experiences, some of them are in me, but not all, never all.
Mostly I realise from that memory of nail.
I miss him.