The old man with the sad, sunken eyes looked down on me and said,

"You have grown to be a beautiful, intelligent young woman"

I thanked the man and stared at him a moment, his eyes dappled with recognition

"But, sir, you do not know me. How could you know what kind of woman I am?"

I was awarded with a crestfallen smile, "We bare the same eyes"

Forgetting the old warning my father gave me as a child, I treated this stranger to lunch

He told stories of his children and how one fell away, leaving him lonesome

He talked with a perspicacious tone and spoke of a daughter

A daughter he had issues with growing up who separated herself from him too soon

As I watched this defeated man relay the sorrows of his life, I began to notice

We share the same eyes and same stories

The man sitting across from me was my father-grown to be unrecognizable with his thinned grey hair and swollen eyes

Together we wept for lot years and lost smiles; we shared the same wish;

That we'd tried to rebuild the bridge between us before it got to this point