Of Love and Age

There is a level of heartbreak that turns everything to ash.

A child’s illness, the mental and the physical ones that break minds and bodies; their helplessness and the unbidden cry from deep within your soul to any deity to take their pain and make it yours.

Watching a parent lose every memory and with each loss feeling the child within you weep in despair of ever knowing you were ever really loved.

Then the loss of a lifelong friend, lover and intellectual equal, drink by drink.

Salvation is discipline. Getting up, washing, eating, working, moving and seeking any tiny bit of joy to heal the pain.

I miss the long days of my sons’ childhoods and reading them stories; I wish I could have done better at being strong for both of them.

I miss my mom.

I miss my friend.

I miss being young.