Caught reminiscing, the hand in the cookie jar of the proverbial past. Childhood memories arriving, surprised to be at the surface again. Florida in the 70s, the 80s. Impossible to stop, difficult to complete. Fragments of unexpected fragments; sensation overtaking fact.
Grief is an odd process, arriving in waves of memory that recur, then disappear. The mind seems to know not to overwhelm by remembering too much at once. I suppose it is a lucky thing, this shuffling of the lived life, the process of accepting death's completion through incomplete pieces of the past.
Time moves in one direction, memory in another.
It is not all bad, the emotional summating. In the last ten years I had become friends with my father, had visited him recently with Rachel and the boy on Thanksgiving. The memories of being a child - my brother magically there, a child again as well - have been almost fun, dangling in the odd light of sorrow. Who knows what my mind gets up to when trying to protect me from myself.
There may always be some unresolved emotion, but I need not carry any additional weight. Perhaps I am fooling myself, but I already feel at peace with his passing. I knew it was coming in a way that I refused to believe about my mother. Though the evidence of her death was undeniable, my mind yet found a way.
I was happy to see my father happy in his new life, with his new family. He became a different person, one that I grew to love.
Happiness is attractive, laughter strong, sometimes lasting.
I am in Breckenridge now, with friends who are skiing and snowboarding. There is this enormous sense of limbo to contend with, high up in the mountains, just west of the continental divide. I spent yesterday working, and likely will do the same today. It is a needed distraction. By tomorrow I will stop, and make my way the last three hours from here to Grand Junction. Or, perhaps I will drive back to Denver, to pick up my brother at the airport.
I will buy a new collared shirt and maybe shoes, for whatever happens, for whatever must happen next.
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