Splinters

I wake early in the morning from a dream. Dad is gone, so is Mom, and we have to sort out the clues of where they've gone and why. And as I lie in my warm cocoon, Egg pressed against my face as we share my pillow, both of us under the blankets, his paw in my hand, my fuzzy mind sorts out the dream and reality.

Mom and Dad are gone, and it isn't the why they've gone that needs sorting, but the how we go on. My eyes fill with tears. Some days without Dad are beginning to feel normal, and the missing isn't such a deep pain. But still, the painful days are deep in my gut, and despondence flits across my day like a skipping stone - causing ripples across the whole pond.

Like splinters that scatter across the forest floor when a giant tree falls, I have boxes of Mom and Dad's stuff to sort through. What tangible splinter of memory will I keep, and what will I relinquish, trusting that the memory ... without the touchstone of this item, this trinket, this photo, this hat, this bowl ... trusting that the memory will remain intact.

And perhaps the hardest part of letting go is not really the physical, but letting go of the memories themselves as little by little, so many of them slip away, and most of what you're left with is the essence of the person, like strong perfume in a vacated elevator. Of course I have many specific memories of both Mom and Dad, and always will, but some things I thought I'd never forget, like the sound of her voice, are foggy and distant, and the letting go, the not working to hold onto it, the recognizing it is all right to leave it behind is a pain and a grief in itself.

So I start this morning teary and weary from my last hour of sleep. But the sun is rising golden and lovely with that particular glow of fall, I have a day to be quiet at home, and I can salve my heart with hot tea, prayer, and the comfort of knowing that, despite the pain and sorrow, my life is full of good things that daily sustain me.