Goodbyes

It's been four months and it still doesn't quite seem real. This world is so different that it's hard to get used to. It must be sinking in, though, because the random fits of crying started only recently. I think it was about four months after Jill's father died that it sank it for her. I should probably watch out for the others and see if it hits them anytime soon.

I had a premonition Friday afternoon that Michael would say "goodbye, Nattie". I knew he was leaving Saturday morning and, while I tried not to think about it, something inside me felt that familiar pang of loss... the two men who understood me the best called me "Nattie", and I suppose I felt that Michael's goodbye would serve well enough for both of them; maybe even as a sort of vessel for Grandpa's words. My melodrama, yes. But when I hugged Michael at the top of my hill Friday night, I had forgotten about the premonition. it wasn't until I had my back turned and was walking away that he said it. I didn't turn around. I couldn't. The wind blew; the first chilly gale of the year, and I walked down the hill and into my house. I didn't cry, which was odd since I've been crying at the slightest thing. I expected to cry, I even *tried* to cry, but nothing came.

Saturday night I reached into the back of my closet bookshelf for my copy of Shakespeare's "Four Comedies" and noticed the roses I'd plucked from Grandpa's burial bouquets, still hanging upside down. They were dry so I took them down and laid them on my stereo. It's time to take the grief and truth out of the closet it's been hanging in and bring it out to live with me everyday.

He isn't off in Key West, and he won't be home for Christmas.