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Mon. Mar 19, 2007

In Memory

It was a year ago today that my Dad passed away.

Over that year I’ve learned that grief has no expiration date. Its intensity decays. But not its presence. It was a year and seventeen days ago that Fuji died. I still grieve for her in unexplainable and unexpected ways.

It was the first of this month that Susan’s father, Clarence Westbrook, passed away. Having gone through it a year ago, I empathized down to my core, and I tried to be there for her, just as she was for me back then. But part of “being there” for someone after having “been there” yourself is knowing that you can’t fix it. You can’t even really bandage it up.

Only time can. And time only makes a dent. We might mark the anniversary of the day someone dear to us passed, but it is all those other days on the calendar that make the difference. The every day. You have to get through a whole lot of those.

And then, just maybe, on a day like today … you can remember with fondness instead of sadness.

Maybe.