It wasA part of us remains wherever we have been.
Which, of course, it does, as I have seen copiously demonstrated this week. My past is blasting all over the place. Not necessarily in a bad way. I can say this because of the sense of peace and love and acceptance I saw in all of Bernie's family at his burial on Thursday. We all come to that place in different ways and at different paces, when we lose someone. When we lose someone, it seems to me, they come back somehow, or someone does. I know I'm rambling, but I'm not maudlin or sad. I've just had a lot of thoughts provoked in these last several days.
For one, yesterday marked four years since my mother died. That year, it was the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. We held her funeral on that Wednesday, the 29th, given the difficulty of making arrangements over a holiday and my cousin's need to get out to New Jersey from Colorado. About an hour after the funeral, she got a phone call that her daughter-in-law was in premature labor in San Francisco, and that night, she flew out there. The next day, the 30th, was my father's birthday -- 83 -- and that same day, two tiny and ultimately perfect little children were born. I am tied to this cousin because my mother and her father were sister and brother, and that day, her sister and brother twin grandchildren were born. So.
Connections are hard to draw out here, but I've said that Bernie, who died this week, and his wife were my parents' best friends. We lived on the same street here in Bizarro Town, and across the street from our house lived another family we became friendly with, whose daughter I write about sometimes and refer to in the diary world as my OldFriend. She and I have remained close; Bernie's daughter and I still have that old bond, but years of living far away from each other have made contact infrequent. Anyway, about an hour ago, I got a phone call from OldFriend's mother, who wants to get in touch with Bernie's wife. It's as if this circle that surrounded me in my childhood has suddenly re-appeared somehow, despite years of thinking of it only tangentially, and letting it slide even more since my parents' passing.
Speaking of which, and I know I've told the story before about how my mother selected her cemetery based on where I would pass by often in the course of my ordinary life; in fact, I passed their cemetery twice today. Usually when I do, I wave, or throw a salute to the captain (my father's rank in the army), or I let a thought or two go out to them. Today I found myself talking to them out loud (which is why it's a good thing to go on errands alone), telling them that I think of them every day, and to look up Bernie and keep him company for awhile. I don't have particularly firm afterlife beliefs, and certainly no religious convictions whatsoever, and to tell the truth, Jack and even Bernie had less of that than I do. Even so. The mind goes where it will.
Because a part of us remains wherever we have been.
