In Search of Home

How does one define “home” in the absence of parents? Where do we go for the holidays? For long weekends away? Who do I send pictures of my child to? Who do we FaceTime with every day at Noon? Who will call to ask what time we’ll be “hitting the road” to drive to their place?

And who will insist on a phone call “just to let me know you got back ok” when we return? And who will ever again eagerly await our arrival and welcome us with arms open so wide that just the image of them standing there was my very definition of “home”?

My parents tethered me to the earth, and I feel like I’m going to float away without them.

On Loss

It’s been six months since my father left this plane of existence — and five days since my mother joined him. Grief has compounded grief, and I feel the overwhelming weight of emptiness as I remember the last time they filled a hallway together.

The Dying of the Light

It has been two months since my father took his last breath. Two months, and still the most innocuous of scenes can trigger a gut punch that renders me nauseous and exhausted, craving sleep to shut out the memories.

Yesterday some loose skin on my daughter’s dry lips had that very effect. I don’t think I will ever look at faces the way I did before.

And I appreciate the beauty of a sip of water more than ever, knowing that some day there might come a time when I want nothing more and yet: cannot swallow.

Does anyone ever truly go “gentle” into that good night? Years ago when I first read Dylan Thomas’ best-known poem — quite possibly in my father’s seventh grade English class — I thought the poet’s words were solely a command to his father.

But now, a little wiser and certainly more weary, I see the poem’s “rage” in an entirely new light.

Two months have passed. And I am seething.