Loss

The people we miss the most are never the ones we learn of by reputation, or who are introduced to us at parties with the phrase, “you should really meet…” The people we really miss are the ones who sneak up on us from behind, insinuate themselves into our lives and stay there like they belong.

Then one Saturday morning you wake up late and wonder why you feel like something’s not quite right with the world. If you’re lucky you pinpoint the loss somewhere in the fabric of your existence. If you’re not, you go through the day feeling as if something is out of place, something doesn’t smell right or somehow the color of the sky is all wrong. It’s the cataclysmic shift that happens when we lose one of the characters in our memories.

Shoulders

There is an elegant vulnerability in shoulders.  The way they curve slowly down from the neck to the arms, conveying with every shift and shrug and involuntary sob-spasm what the face couldn’t quite get out.   I think we take someone by the shoulders  when we want to talk to them directly, or when we want to comfort them deeply, because shoulders listen too.  They listen better than our ears to the silent warnings, encouragements and invitations our hands can communicate.  That is why I love shoulders in general.  My reasons for loving Anna’s are too intimate for discussion here.  Suffice it to say that there are many.

My Brother

Forgive the disjointed nature of my posts, but I think I will return to my brother today.  When my older brother David came back to live with us after his stint in the army, you couldn’t tell the difference in his eyes or his smile, he was careful to keep those the same.  But the way his back stayed straight up when he sat down, pulling away from the back of his chair and the way he’d stop his hand halfway from running his fingers through his hair.  Those things were different.

I was so young, those are the only images that I can recall, the only warning signs that could help me to place his death within the realm of cause and effect.  It was comforting once I did, at least then, though my brother’s death was just as sad, it was less terrifying.