Warm nights and celebrations

         It's a warm night as I sit on my balcony with a glass of vino and listen to the peepers. The clouds are black in the midnight blue sky and the red glow of the already set sun hangs on the horizon like it doesn't want to say goodnight. It's a perfect background for reflection. This past weekend I have spent a evening with family; celebrating my father's 80th birthday with a good steak, accompanied by all my children save one, and my siblings. It was very nice. The rents are aging well, they are still with us and I am grateful for that. Eighty and eighty four and they still live alone without any help or support from anyone, fifty five years married this year.  Wow.

Also this weekend my son graduated with his baccalaureate in chemistry (high honors-mom gotta brag) so at his request his siblings, their significant others and I spent two days at the cottage talking, laughing, crying, eating, and making merriment. Michael, my baby, spent the last four years (through some very tough times and major life changes) studying his heart out to achieve this goal. We are all so proud of what he has been able to do. In these last four years his father died, he fell in love and she moved in with him and we moved from his childhood home. He still managed to graduate at that caliber of achievement. I am in awe. I could not do anything these last four years save stay alive.  So this type of achievement is noteworthy for sure. And we all wanted to show him. My daughter decorated the cottage with his school colors and helium balloons, my son bought lobster for his grad supper, I ordered a cake and made a rib dinner, his sister surprised him by showing up unexpectedly. He got his first Cuban cigar and his favorite drinks. Meaningful messages came his way from those who couldn't attend. Everyone knows what this achievement means.

Especially Mike. And all it took was looking at his cake to open the floodgate. Four years of accumulated perseverance and dedication bubbled to the surface.... and of course the absence of who didn't see this day.  When Mike was in his first year university his dad was his champion. He would have tears in his eyes when Mike brought home a B- , he encouraged him, cheered him and noticed every step of his first semester as he struggled and spent endless hours in his bedroom studying. Near the end of Michael's first year Terry died unexpectedly and quickly. Mike had no time to even process the death of his dad when his first year final exams were on him. He also was the only one left in the house to attend to things like rats, floods, lawn mowing, wood to fetch through snowstorms, shoveling and general mom worrying. It was not easy. we shared many a good cry.  But he made it, he did it.

So when we all gathered and I put the cake down in front of him it all hit home. You see his dad used to do that, every year he'd make a supper of Mike's choosing for his birthday, he'd make his cake, offer it to him and light his candles. And he wasn't there to do it this time. Terry would have been over the moon about this achievement, just like he was over all the other kids graduations, from high school, from college, from the army etc. he was always there for all of them except this.  We all felt it-we all grieved it together, all of us crying over what we miss. What Mike missed.

It was weird to feel comfort in this moment of communal grieving, to not be alone in it for a change. To grieve for someone else besides me. Eventually I moved it on, we had our moment and I moved us along to the celebrations. And so we did well into the night. And it was good.