The blackthorn was his father's, a piece of Ireland that the old man could still get his hands around even as his hands grew weak, refused to hold. My father never knew Ireland; when he gripped the walking stick it was something else he was holding on to. I watched my father get old; he would stare at his hand and open and close his fist, try to fight the arthritis. By then he had lost the stick, and he could have used it to work his grip, to beat at the hard knot that was tying him up. When he died he was laid in the ground only a few feet from his father, while in Ireland the sturdy blackthorns were defying that sad land and bursting with white blossoms. Anonymous submission.