What Can You Say?

Sometimes, there just are no words. I've been waiting for a few days now for the words to come to me, and they just aren't.

While still working through the grief of Larry's death in October and preparing to go to Arizona for his memorial, I received a voicemail message from my father on Saturday afternoon. He was calling to tell me that my stepmother had died. She was not old. She was not sick. I was not ready.

When Larry died, the words came to me immediately, and I posted them here. Larry had been in my life for 12 years, and I knew just exactly what I wanted to say about what I was feeling. Astrid has been my stepmother since 1973, and our relationship can probably be most kindly described as complex. And I have no idea what I'm feeling now.

I posted a picture of Larry, taken only a couple of months before his death, and less than 2 weeks after I last saw him. I could post a picture of Astrid, but it would be either taken by somebody else at a time and place to which I have no real emotional attachment, or so old as to not have any real relevance to it anymore. Such was the nature of our relationship.

If there is a gift to be had, it is that through all of this, both of my parents have each expressed a concern and a sympathy for the other that I honestly didn't think possible. A couple of people have wondered if this is perhaps some sort of karmic sign that my parents should be together again... I must ask forgiveness when I laugh at that. One co-worker asked if that was a fantasy that had died long ago. My answer was no, that was a fantasy that had never existed in the first place. If there is one thing I can be certain of, it is that that is not the path the universe has in store for either of them.

But beyond that... I don't know what to say...