I have been grieving my parents somewhat these last couple of weeks, reflecting on their quiet isolation out at All Saints, away from the activities of the living, such as they are under COVID, remembering our old holiday life. Wistful, I called Nelson’s Flowers to order a wreath for their tombstone and got the last fresh one, the one my mom used to order for Stevie’s grave. I was brought to tears by the thought that I had gestured rightly, that my sense of loss connected to my mother’s so perfectly, coincidentally, and so timely, and that I spoke with someone who knew my mother and her floral taste and preferences, who approved and, perhaps, was gratified to learn that my mother’s practice would be carried on. These attenuated vestiges of past life, whose provenance is lost, or will be in due time, faintly echo the beauty, mysterious and fragile, that makes our life singular, worth living, and, alas, necessitates our dying. Last week I hung the Christmas bells in the front window. They are not identical to the bells that tolled in our front windows in West Middlesex and Mercer, but they do the job, and, a gift from Karen, a new one as well. An old man with much to look back upon fondly, I look forward as well, though perhaps less avidly, to this world without parents.
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