Obituary

My father's obit post last weekend.  A few people reached out to me about it, including some people I had not heard from in a very long time.   That was nice. 

Initially with his passing, there were a lot of things I wanted to write about.  But I have been slowly concluding there are likely many things better left alone.  Is unearthing this event or that one from 35 years ago going to change anything?  I mean, it is a bit true that the time for that has passed.  Is my writing about such topics and trying inevitably to steer them to some positive perspective or some lesson, some silver lining from a difficultly, actually going to drive a growth in me?  Or is a self gratuitous grinding to reinforce viewpoints I already hold?  Can I be really honest?  I mean I know I am biased, but can I think past the stories and look at this history objectively?  

He had nearly 20 years after my Mom passed.  In that house.  By himself.  His health on the long slow inevitable decline that comes with age.  The house dying in its own way mirroring a decrepit path.  The world kept marching on.   He marched with it in some ways - engaging with the Masons, and friends he had, but living mostly alone.  

It is a lot to contemplate what that time was to him.  All those days.  

I know he wasn't wholly happy with it.  He wanted a life with his grandkids.  But they were in CO and he was not going to come here unless I made him go and made it just "happen."  Somehow that was a responsibility I was to fulfill.  

I didn't.  I chose to let him make his own choices with their own consequences and told him as such.  I told him that if he moved to CO our relationship would be different and he didn't like that either.  So he stayed in CT.  It is where he, my mother and my brother, will all be interned to rest in death.  

So, there are questions, shadows of guilt, and a natural wondering if it could have been different.  I don't know and that door has shut.   The silver lining I guess is contemplating how I treat the relationships I have now and how I wish to steer those while I am here.  

And that, what we do with the time we got, that is pretty much it - ain't it?