words aren't everything

Driving in my father's red truck down a big Georgia highway,
fog shrouds the trees and the signs and the skyline.
There is not much to say,
yet
there, 
between the dashboard 
where his Coke Zero in a plastic bottle
and a crumpled-up used tissue 
fit in the drink holders,
sits 
a 
whole 
lifetime
with him as my parent. 

“I had something I wanted to ask you,” I say,
even though my mind goes blank
when confronted with the enormity of what I want to ask him.
All the questions and memories and stories I want to know 
about his life, 
Mama's life (which I'll never know), 
my life. 

Will I get more chances to ask? 
Shouldn't I take advantage?

But my mouth cannot find the words 
(as is often the case).
So often I am wordless,
unable to find the language,
to ask the questions,
to say the truth at the center of my existence. 

We sit in intermittent silence
commenting only on our pet peeves as drivers
and the songs that come on the radio. 

Then, 
I glance at his hands on the steering wheel,
the same hands I've known all my life,
and I remember,
words aren't everything.