One Year

One year ago.

2:48am.

Dad died.

It was peaceful.

Janet pronounced him gone, but not dead.  Just as she had pronounced Mom gone but not dead, 15 years before.

Not dead. Not either of them.  Not as long as those who love them are alive.

They live on.  In us.  In the good we do.  In the quirky things we do.  In the things we say (and then shake our heads because we never imagined those words coming from our mouths).

″Everything dies; that’s a fact,  Maybe everything that dies some day comes back. ″

I think Mom and Dad are here, hovering over their children.

Still, one year later, I am having a hard time thinking about life without you, Mom and Dad.

Just yesterday, we were kids and we were playing with our cousins while the uncles and aunts were gathered.  The clan that made it in America and pushed their kids to heights they never imagined.

Now, the kids are the elders. And still I can’t let go of Rosh Ha-Shanah on hot days on Wellington Avenue in New Rochelle, playing on the lawn. The sunlight in my memory still blinds my eyes.

We are old now.  Time to take our place among the generations.

But we didn’t fight, we didn’t starve, we didn’t want for much.  How do we stand with those who came before?

How do we take our place?

What have we done to deserve to stand next to Mom and Dad and their siblings?

And, all of the questions we have that go unanswered.  Questions that we didn’t have until now.

And that is where the loneliness comes in.  The questions we never knew to ask that now go unanswered.

Mom and Dad, please don’t make us find out the hard way.  Just visit us in our dreams.

Love, Blogger.