...And For Mourning

  October is beautiful but there is no way we can avoid that it signals the end of summer, a time of relaxation, a different cadence to life. October has always been a significant month for me, long before my sister’s death. My mother’s birthday was in October. All the rest of the family had birthdays in winter or spring or summer. But Mom’s birthday was in October.

   I imagine her parents, in their apartment in New York City, at the time she was conceived. They had not been here in this country long. Perhaps just long enough to have something to celebrate - a place of their own - a community of other immigrants that spoke their language - the launching of his small accordion business. I like to think she was conceived in much happiness and love, even if on a bitter cold January night.

   Like the passing of the seasons, Mom’s life has passed, and sister Sally’s too. They were always so close in life, I am sure they are joined wherever they are. And my life is more and more often called upon to grieve, not just in October, but all throughout the year as old friends, old ways, old places, old times are gone and I must come to terms with a new context for my living. We all grieve. Sometimes consciously and sometimes not.

   Today I am grieving the loss of my lenses. Isn’t that silly? They weren’t doing such a good job for me and yet they were an intimate part of me from the time I was born. I am conscious of the fact that in place of those bits of me, I have substitutes, bits of other combinations of matter that can do the job of seeing better than mine could. (I wonder what they did with my old lenses...)

   Somehow it seems unfair that all this grieving has to come at a time in our lives when we have less stamina, less energy, more distraction, and fractious memory. But the one thing we do have is time and it takes time to grieve, time to discover new routines, new friends, new communities, time to re-stitch the fabric of our lives. We have been doing this over and over; it’s just that it becomes more apparent as we get older and the losses come faster.

  Don’t think for a moment I am not grateful for my improved eyesight or for the skill of the surgeon who made it possible. I am grateful - and looking forward to many more years of reading and living a full life.

  Speaking of that surgeon, Dr. Lass was not so happy with the check-up on my eye yesterday. A man of few words, he said nothing as he examined my eye. He made his notes and then turned and gave me the sheet of instructions for the next week. He increased Fred’s drops from 4x a day to 6x a day, Dick and Flo to keep their same schedule as before. When I asked why the change, he said we had to get the swelling down; the Fuchs had caused some swelling.

  So I have a chart. Drops six times a day. Maybe I’ll not be returning home as soon as I thought. But we keep on keeping on. It’s what we do.

Be seeing you....