Dan's cousin died today. She'd had a stroke about a week before Christmas and never recovered. I didn't know her well -- we lived in different states -- but I've always liked her. Diane's father died this morning. I never met him but my heart aches for her. My grandfather died eleven years ago yesterday (yes, on my birthday), he'd come to LA to celebrate the holidays with family and had a stroke Christmas Eve. His death still haunts me. I loved -- and love -- him.
My father used to say that more people die around the winter holidays than at any other time of year, except maybe their birthdays. It's as if they wait for family to come together, though of course it doesn't always work that way. But still, there's something to what he said.
My father. I had a dream about him last week. A dream that he had died. And in the dream he came to me and looked the way he did ten or fifteen years ago when we were still close. I told him I missed him. I cried. He comforted me, after a fashion, but wordlessly. As I guess befits the dead.
My father and I have been estranged for just about a year. It saddens me greatly. It's like a death. I may never talk to him again, will probably never see him again. He exists only in my memories. But still, he's alive and while he is, there is this possibility, however remote, that we will reconnect. Once he's gone that too is gone. I don't know how that will feel. I can't guess. I wonder if he too will die during the holiday season. I know I will mourn him.
Posted by Tamar at December 30, 2003 11:22 PM