Dear Adam,
Last night we spent time with my parents...they're really aging as we all noted within the past year or two...Nana can't see well and Pop struggles "just" to get out of a chair...and his hearing is lost...half of what I say seems lost in translation...and they seem at a "loss" at what to say...although that seems to be the general consensus...we gathered at the restaurant they took you to weekly at one point...you used to go with them on a Wednesday after Nana went to the hairdresser...you'd order a shrimp platter and then head off to Wal-mart...and you guys did this weekly for several years until you hit the higher point of high school and your activities somehow got in the way....and just a few months ago...it was us, the six of us who gathered there for celebrate Pop's birthday...last night we sat at a table....like we all did often before...and there were still 6 chairs present at that same table...only last night, one seat was empty...the seat next to me. No one said anything....but all through the meal I felt the emptiness and loss it induced...
I see the empty chair each night when I set my own table...I see the toothbrush that was yours still inside our toothbrush holder...Your CD player which held a cherished spot in our bathroom still sits there...untouched...with your CD still within...and I think, whatever music you had in there was what you'd been listening to the last time you showered on Friday, Feb. 19th...I think that each one of us doesn't want to remove any of it...we know you're not coming back...but the little bit of comfort we see in those little things is what we hold onto...a piece of you....and now Dad...he gave Jordan the Chevy to use since he must travel back and forth to Bethlehem ...so he uses your car...it was rough on him...your music still in the CD player there, too. As difficult as it was at first, he now feels some comfort being in that car...perhaps he feels you're there riding shotgun with him......and he hasn't changed that CD either...the one you'd been listening to on your ride home that night...the night when life changed for all of us...
Last night we spent time with my parents...they're really aging as we all noted within the past year or two...Nana can't see well and Pop struggles "just" to get out of a chair...and his hearing is lost...half of what I say seems lost in translation...and they seem at a "loss" at what to say...although that seems to be the general consensus...we gathered at the restaurant they took you to weekly at one point...you used to go with them on a Wednesday after Nana went to the hairdresser...you'd order a shrimp platter and then head off to Wal-mart...and you guys did this weekly for several years until you hit the higher point of high school and your activities somehow got in the way....and just a few months ago...it was us, the six of us who gathered there for celebrate Pop's birthday...last night we sat at a table....like we all did often before...and there were still 6 chairs present at that same table...only last night, one seat was empty...the seat next to me. No one said anything....but all through the meal I felt the emptiness and loss it induced...
I see the empty chair each night when I set my own table...I see the toothbrush that was yours still inside our toothbrush holder...Your CD player which held a cherished spot in our bathroom still sits there...untouched...with your CD still within...and I think, whatever music you had in there was what you'd been listening to the last time you showered on Friday, Feb. 19th...I think that each one of us doesn't want to remove any of it...we know you're not coming back...but the little bit of comfort we see in those little things is what we hold onto...a piece of you....and now Dad...he gave Jordan the Chevy to use since he must travel back and forth to Bethlehem ...so he uses your car...it was rough on him...your music still in the CD player there, too. As difficult as it was at first, he now feels some comfort being in that car...perhaps he feels you're there riding shotgun with him......and he hasn't changed that CD either...the one you'd been listening to on your ride home that night...the night when life changed for all of us...
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