6 Months

All Is Well

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was,
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It it the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,
Just around the corner.
All is well.

Henry Scott Holland
1847-1918


~~~~~~~

My mother has a picture of Patrick in her living room. Its Pat, on the phone. He was watching a Celtics game and on the other end of the line is my mom.... watching the same game.

They did this regularly. Calling each other every 2 minutes at times. Sometimes they would yell at the refs together, other times they would hoot and holler and celebrate. Each in their own homes, wearing their Celtics jerseys and hats.

My mother has the same conversations now as she did before Patrick died. Only now, she is hollering at a photograph. Even occasionally blaming Patrick for a missed shot or a losing game. She flips him off. She celebrates victories.

This is the very lived-out meaning of that poem. There is never a reason to leave Patrick out of our daily lives. There is never reason to stop talking to him. There is every reason to believe that he is there, in the next room, in our dreams, in our thoughts. I believe he is waiting for us to join him in that place where generations of family live and live and live.

This new reality can be what we want it to be. We can and do shed a lot of tears. Sometimes they're happy, others they're not. The ride must end and it never ends when we want. We don't get to choose that and that's a damn hard lesson to learn. We can question, curse and pull our hair out searching for the why, the how and if only... but it gets us no closer to him. It will never bring Patrick back.

So, here we are. Given today. Today... to live a day that was not given to him.

And that's the key:

To live today.