The Quiet Damage to the Offspring of a Public Legacy

No vessel is large enough to contain it

I didn’t go looking for it.

I was reading an article about Minnesotans’ protests of ICE and art—about the Twin Cities, about community, about joy in pain— when I ran straight into an older story featuring my father’s name.

Andy’s Gallery.

A permanent in-stadium gallery, named after him. A tribute. A legacy.

The stadium sits kittycorner from my last good apartment in Minnesota—the one I lived in before I left that life for someone else, someone whose own father is now also absent. The symmetry hit me before I had words for it.

I closed the article.

Then I opened it again.