outside the center

I’m sleeping with mom. She went to bed before me and I left her there. I check to make sure she is still breathing. I’m doing that thing.  We all are doing it. I think this may be the longest time she’s been able to sleep in days. I left her there. Get some rest.

I smell coffee and hear the sneeze. Great! Dad’s making the coffee. I hear the shuffling in the kitchen. It’s Curt. It sounded like dad. It’s the dad ritual. Confused.

Aaaand we’re back. Back to this new world where dad isn’t.

I wonder about mom. Her every day is permeated with those sounds. Dad is a habit. Dad is the beginning and end of each day. How long did it take for me to get over the loss of some love? There is some bullshit formula somewhere of x time together divided equals some finite amount of months, years, hours…decades. Fifty two years is a long while to share a home; a lifetime. Time to have seen each of us: me, Joseph, Elice, Elaine, Beau and Ben come into this world, small swaddled bundles; to bury one son; to see the rest through adorablility and awkwardness; watching and helping us navigate through growing, floundering and at time landing safely. And we leave to make our own lives. Mom and dad left as our root and anchor. Our time is theirs. Throw that into the equation.

Still wrapping my head around losing dad; what it means for me? There is loss there.

How tiny that must be compared to the woman who shared so much of her life with him? At some point, we got older – the lot of us. Funny, dad never did. Not in my mind. Always strong and vibrant. That’s why this is a mistake. Maybe that’s why he chose this time to go. He left undimmed. Never frail.

Frail.

That’s the word that came to mind looking at her sleeping form. There is loss there.