Myriad things
I’ll make a small exception to my rule of talking about grief in order to coin a new concept. Sarah, the pilot light of my oven, has a lot of experience with grief. She lost her dad many years ago, and perspective given with time and the loss of several of her friends parents in the last two years has made her a savvy observer of grief for people our age.
She has a ‘one year’ rule about losing a family member, especially a parent. She says you have to go through every holiday, anniversary, every birthday for at least one year after the death of that family member before you can expect to really get through your grief. I see that. I don’t celebrate Christmas, but my mom loved it and so every stupid Christmas Carol, every stocking, reminds me of her.
There’s another experience though, a similar rule that I experienced. I walked through Boston’s Logan airport today and stopped at the exact spot where my mom called me two years ago to tell me she had cancer. I was traveling to Boston, heard the message and called her back four steps past security. I stopped and talked to her about it. Now, walking those same steps it all flowed back and out came the once a day tears.
I suppose I have to experience all the places that remind me of my mom in order to divest them of the strong upsetting memories of her.
On a different topic, I’m starting a really exciting project at work that will require a lot of writing. I’m going to either blog almost not at all, or it will turn me into a writing machine and I’ll be blogging a lot. Either way, I’ll put something here when we launch.