Journal entry by Al Negstad — 21 minutes ago
"Putting the girls to bed" has not been quite accurate for a long time. The reality is that they put themselves to bed and I'm just in attendance. This was my good fortune tonight and it had been a long time, since before I left for Thailand in mid-January.
Sitting in the rocking chair next to the bunk beds in the room they share, my eye fell on the three pictures on the wall by Sella's bed. The middle picture was of Grandma and it was taken late in her life. It pictured her the way Sella would remember her.
Seeing that picture, the presence of absence struck me hard. The losses accompanying Joanne's death were all caught up in that picture. The girls, deprived of a Grandma while they are so young, are subject to significant loss. Joanne took such delight in them.
Joanne doesn't get so see how they've grown in the eleven months since she died. Evy seems to always have a book in her hand as she approaches her 10th birthday. Sella, just turned seven, reads phonetically and seems destined to follow her sisters reading habits. Joanne loses out on birthday celebrations that she loved and all the special family times.
Having now lived eleven months in the land of grief, and singly in my condo, the presence of absence usually strikes me less forcefully. That presence is more like a hum in the background. Then, out of the blue some little thing will bring it to the fore...like Joanne's picture by Sella's bed.
Blessings,
Al
Sitting in the rocking chair next to the bunk beds in the room they share, my eye fell on the three pictures on the wall by Sella's bed. The middle picture was of Grandma and it was taken late in her life. It pictured her the way Sella would remember her.
Seeing that picture, the presence of absence struck me hard. The losses accompanying Joanne's death were all caught up in that picture. The girls, deprived of a Grandma while they are so young, are subject to significant loss. Joanne took such delight in them.
Joanne doesn't get so see how they've grown in the eleven months since she died. Evy seems to always have a book in her hand as she approaches her 10th birthday. Sella, just turned seven, reads phonetically and seems destined to follow her sisters reading habits. Joanne loses out on birthday celebrations that she loved and all the special family times.
Having now lived eleven months in the land of grief, and singly in my condo, the presence of absence usually strikes me less forcefully. That presence is more like a hum in the background. Then, out of the blue some little thing will bring it to the fore...like Joanne's picture by Sella's bed.
Blessings,
Al
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