The new pope looked down on the moving heads, waving arms, heard the cacophany of sound, brass bands, singing in a multitude of tongues, watched the fluttering flags in the wind, saw the dark sky illuminated by millions of cell phone flashes as his followers took their shot of history. All around the world people watched tv, heard his first words, the blessing, the prayers, the gratitude.

I knew that it was a day most of them would never forget but gradually the magnificence of it would fade in the same way my memories faded of my father, the strong vibrant man that would swoop me up in his arms and twirl me about whenever he came home from work. Or help me dig deep in the garden with a spade for my own plot of vegetables, my small foot ontop of his big boot.

As I watched the pope leave the balcony to cheers and claps and all manner of human sounds I tried to remember my father's face.