Neighbors

My mom’s friends and neighbors are genuinely heartbroken over Colby’s passing. They had watched him grow up from the time he was an infant and it is easy to see their grief is real. While I am here they bring food: melons, tomatoes and squash from their farms, freshly baked chocolate zucchini cake and apple pie, pasta, and more. It’s what people do, bring food to comfort the bereaved. But after the food is handed over no one knows what to say, and really, there is nothing anyone can say. We are all heartbroken.

Each visitor finally says what I already know. Colby was smart, talented, polite, helpful. He was a wonderful conversationalist. They loved him. And Colby loved his grandma. Anyone who ever saw them together knows that. My mother and my son had a special bond, a special connection that went beyond grandmother and grandson, and everyone comments on it.

The ache in the pit of my stomach grows with each visitor. It’s accompanied by an incredible emptiness, a sadness that is bigger than life. Other families endure losses such as this, but most other families aren’t as small as ours. We are a family of two and someday we will be one. Most likely that one will be me. I am still working through that in my counseling sessions. I’m not sure I am making progress. But I will. At some point I will. But now I pack my suitcase, do a few last minute chores and try to enjoy a few more minutes in the house my grandparents built, the house I grew up in, the one place Colby truly thought of as home.