This is Thomas, Patty, and Francis’s day.

It should have been February. It is February in my heart. But here I am, writing in January, because the world, the calendar, and the slow, indifferent grind of time have stolen it from us again. February 29 doesn’t exist this year. A blank space, a forgotten square. As if that day—his day, our day—could be erased.

But the calendar doesn’t know him. It doesn’t know us. It doesn’t understand the weight of what was left behind, the gravity of the promise that binds me now, as strong as any covenant written in stone.

He called out her name first. Patty. My mother. His wife. Even then, even when cancer had taken almost everything from him—his strength, his voice, his time—his love for her was the one thing it could not touch. It shone through, pure and unyielding, as if to say: I’m still here. I still see you.

And then, he called out my name. Thomas.

I didn’t expect it. Even now, I’m not sure I deserved it. But he did it—deliberately, clearly. There was no wavering in his voice, no hesitation. In that moment, I realized he wasn’t just calling me to his side. He was handing something to me. Something larger than words. Something that will live with me for the rest of my life.

It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t a plea. It was a covenant. A promise, sealed in the most sacred way.

Take care of her.

He didn’t say it outright, but it was there, hanging in the air between us, as certain and unshakable as the foundation of the world. Take care of her, Thomas.

His love for her, the life they built together, the home they shared, was entrusted to me. It wasn’t just his voice that gave me that charge—it was everything he had ever been. It was the strength in his hands when he built, the steady calm in his presence when he stayed. It was the fire of his love for her, burning bright even in the darkest hours.

And now, Thomas isn’t just my name. It’s who I am for him. It’s the son he saw in me, the one he believed in. It’s how I keep him here, how I hold onto the man he was and the lessons he left me. He stays with me, my father, not in some distant memory but in every breath, every step I take to honor him.

I’m not Thomas Francis, not tied to anyone else’s legacy or shadow. I am his Thomas. His son. And he remains with me in that name, in the promise I made to him. A promise not whispered, not half-spoken, but carried out in the light of his trust.

When he called my mother first, I understood how deep his love ran. Even in the end, she was his light, his anchor. But when he called for me, it surprised me. It humbled me. It broke me open. Because in that call, I heard everything I needed to know:

You are enough. You are ready. I trust you.

Those words weren’t spoken, but they didn’t have to be. They live in the echo of his voice. They live in the charge he gave me, in the promise I carry now. And every time I think about that moment, I feel the weight of it pressing on me, as heavy as the love that bound us all together.

Cancer tried to take everything. It robbed us of his presence, his laughter, his strength. It stripped away the years we thought we had left. But it couldn’t take his grace. It couldn’t take his love. And it couldn’t take the bond he left between me and my mother.

That bond is my duty now. My charge. My reason to keep climbing this hill, even when it feels like I’m climbing alone.

The world can keep its leap years, its vanishing Februarys. It can pretend that this day doesn’t exist. But I know better. This is still our day.

This is Thomas’s day. Patty’s day. And it’s my day too. A promise, a covenant, made by a father to his son, and by a son to his father.

He stays with me. Not in the shadows, but in the strength he taught me, in the grace he carried even in his final moments.

I will keep the promise. I will take care of her. I will honor him.

And yet, I cannot let the world know me as Thomas. That name, spoken by him, is sacred now. It belongs to him, to me, to her. It is locked in that moment when he called us both, his voice breaking through the pain to deliver the weight of his love.

So, to the world, I am Francis. Not because I’ve left Thomas behind, but because Thomas is ours—mine, my father’s, and my mother’s. It’s our private moment, one that not even Father Time, cancer, or the calendar can take from us. Francis is the name I wear now, the name I choose, to remind myself of the promise I made and the man who believed in me enough to ask it.

This is Francis’s journey. But it will always be Thomas’s day.