Photos and Text by Corey Amaro
It was late,
It had rained most of the day.
I hadn't been to the brocante (flea market) because of it.
Chelsea was studying for her final exams, hours on end, her B.A at nineteen.
Sacha was chasing the same blues as me… though his blues were due to not being able to ride his BMX.
Needing a hit of sunshine I called home.
Luckily for me I hit the jackpot when I called my brother Mark and Sister in Law Diane's house: Their four children were there, plus niece Marie.
My nephew George (5) got on the phone first:
"I can read Aunt Coco."
My niece Maci (8) was next:
"I got a goat! I bought it for five dollars!"
Her sister Gina (10) grabbed the phone and laughed:
"It poops all over."
The littlest Kate was chirping in the background, "My turn, my turn!" At three she wants to be like the big kids. She said:
"I am big, I am not a baby."
Marie (10) asked,
"When are you coming back?"
Gina said, "Kate's hair touches her shoulders."
George told me about how he can ride the motorcycle he got from Santa Claus in the fields behind the barn.
I asked Marie if she was taller than me. She thinks she is. I told her to get a brick and tie it to her head with a pretty ribbon because, "I don't want to be the shortest in the family!"
My sister in law Diane got on the phone. She said the other day at the Open House at school, the children were asked,
"If you could have anything in the world what would you want?"
Maci replied, "I would want my Vo (grandfather) back alive, so that my family could be happy again."
With that the storm that has been raging outside, was felt pouring down my face. It was comforting to share sadness, to share the pain of loss, to know that life goes on, our lives continue, we grow and change… that we carry the same feeling of loss together and wish each other well.
The rain continued. It washed over me through the night, and this morning.
It is a strange thing this feeling of grief. It is strange to bear it, honor it and carry on day by day. Tears come and go. The feeling of lost washing in and out like the ocean's tide… the beach is made smooth, while the tide takes the emotions left there.
I find myself wishing my father would call me on the phone… and when I feel like this I call home because he is there.
Wherever we are, we are together by the fabric of who we are.
Sharing family
is by being present to one another: over the phone, under a dark sky, with
a goat that poops, a daughter studying in her room, and a with a little
girl who declares her life "Big!"
Grief is like this, it comes and goes, staying with us until it has dissolved into our being, and made whole.
My parent's told us not to complain about the weather; we were farm children and farm children are told not to complain about the weather, especially rain. But today I am wishing that the rain would go over to the next town … well for a few hours at least.
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