PattybytheSea

In some alternate reality, I am just sitting here with my windows open as the city quiets down and folks on the beast coast enjoy a nice fall night. Someone has a fire pit going in the town and the smoke seems to travel well here. I am pulled back to The Can, to The Biscuit. The smell of dried burning leaves and the world quieting down. Now, maybe more than ever, I know that peace and happiness are so much more valuable than debates and criticism. Somewhere we got caught in the blur of life. I blame technology. Ha. I think about what you would be doing. A relaxing Sunday of visits, a pot of gravy with some ravs, maybe a roast and some veggies. A call to ask me if I want to stop by for dinner. How I thought those invites would never end. How I value your cooked meals filling my belly with nutrients and love and the simple fact you just liked having us over, just liked company. Just liked people. I think about you taking your boxes of fall and Halloween stuff out. I can imagine those tin

I saw a story about a chef, 49, who died from a brain aneurysm. She had no idea. She had texted family she was feeling great.  Chicago Mourns Death of Adored Goddess & Grocer Executive Chef I read a quote from another story about her and immediately thought of you. “I’m incredibly sad and missing her, and I always have those memories,” Pinkney said, reminiscing about when Dedinsky first walked into her restaurant years ago. “But I know she was happy until the end, because she didn’t know that was the end. She died at her happiest.”  I am so happy your last memories are of the beach, your sister, your kids, your grandkids. I am happy to know that those thoughts, are your last...stamped in time...forever on your soul.  I have more to write, but I have to step away. You are so so so sooooooooooo missed. After typing that I just said, "Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo big." God. I never will forget you saying that to so many babies.  Always in my heart Mom. There forever. Bobby

If I be the first of us to die, Let grief not blacken long your sky. Be bold yet modest in your grieving. There is a change but not a leaving. For just as death is part of life, The dead live on forever in the living. And all the gathered riches of our journey, The moments shared, the mysteries explored, The steady layering of intimacy stored, The things that made us laugh or weep or sing, The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring, The wordless language of look and touch, The knowing, Each giving and each taking, These are not flowers that fade, Nor trees that fall and crumble, Nor are they stone, For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand. What we were, we are. What we had, we have. A conjoined past imperishably present. So when you walk the woods where once we walked together And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow, Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land, And spotting