Puzzled

  Thing change as we grow older. Simple things, everyday things that we often don't give a thought too. Oh, we become aware of our aches and pains, our greying hair, or lack of it, how we can't quite get up off the floor like we used to. Remember lying on the floor and watching television? Yeah, give that a try today. Unless you have been practicing yoga doing the Cobra pose, you can forget about it. We don't see as well as we once did and other people are speaking a lot softer these days, the volume on the television is funny too, 10 isn't as loud as it used to be. But all of those are just little changes, small things that mostly go unnoticed and written off as just getting old. 

  Today is the birthday of my granddaughter Shyann. She's 21 today, where has that time gone. It is also the birthday of my sister, Millie. She will have been gone six years come December. She was born in West Palm beach Florida in 1951, grew up in East Hampton New York with my brothers and I, married and moved to Melbourne Florida. When we are young we think of birthdays, we count down to them, we anticipate them, can't wait to be 16, 18, and then 21. Milestone ages. Then we reach a certain age, I'm not certain when that is exactly, but we begin to remember those who died. We don't call them death days. In recent years we have taken to calling a funeral a celebration of life, I believe in an attempt to avert the reality. We don't celebrate death days however, they are remembered in silence, with a prayer and perhaps flowers on a gravesite.

  My granddaughter Shyann lives in upstate New York and so I don't get to celebrate with her. It's hard to believe she is 21 today. Oh, I've visited with her a few times, twice last year I think. She is busy living in her world while I'm living in mine. That is the way it is with families sometimes. My son married and moved to his wife's home. His wife passed a year ago this past January on the 22nd of the month. A date I'm certain my granddaughter will never forget. Perhaps the first date in the category I'm thinking about, days of loss, although she has lost both her grandfather and grandmother on that side as well. Hopefully she doesn't remain as aware over the years. 

 That is something I think does change, that awareness. Then it reappears as some point when we get older. And for me October the tenth will forever be a reminder of two events, a birth and a death. The circle of life. It's a bit of a shame that we see the big picture when we are far away. But that is called perspective. The details can be intriguing, but it is the whole that is the most important. And I do believe one day we will all be together again, if only briefly, to continue on. Death is simply one of those changes, as is life. For a brief time anyway I believe all the pieces come together in what we call death. The beginning and the end.