never enough

It's hard to reconcile something that is both natural and devastating.

This is the time for milestones - graduation, engagements, stepping into the real world.

But I guess this is also the time for remembering grandparents.

It's strange that while I have always remembered Dad's dad as my favorite (and Mom's mom as my other favorite) - for no real reason except that this is just how I remember it - a photograph of him and me doesn't exist in my four photo albums.

It's not that I have problems crying in front of people - because I don't.

It's not that I don't feel anything - because I do.

It's more that I don't know what to do with my hands, and I don't know where I should look.

It's more that I never learned those outlets for appreciation, grief, and apologies.

It's more that suddenly everyone who never cries is quietly crying.

And no one is facing anyone else.

Maybe our lives find a way to revolve around one singular motivation that is both the cause and effect for everything that we are.  Maybe if this is true, I can't feel anything at a level beyond missing her because everything will always cause me to miss her.  So maybe I can't put into words what this is, but that's not to say I am not very simply sad.

It's strange to somehow empathize with your parent when you are hardly an adult.  It's uncomfortable to understand completely the sentiment of never enough time and still be unable to fix it.

There are unopened jars of food in the refrigerator and blank canvases stacked against the wall.  There is a new car in the parking lot.  As if he would simply return from another surgery.  The cave of computers, the sewing machine, the easel, the souvenirs collected over only two years.  The apartment.  As if he was only beginning again.

What a strange virtue of human nature - that even when we are preparing for leave, we never actually stop trying to live.

Rest in peace.