They’ve Flown Away
I just lost two aunts in a week’s time. Wondrous women, both. Mary Beth and Jean. Mary Beth was 96 and Jean was just shy of 90. Mary Beth was Mom’s oldest sibling and Jean was her sister-in-law, her brother Dave’s wife. They both passed days after a fall.
Death is an unpleasant marker/rite of passage for where I am now in my life. Others’ deaths, not my own thankfully. Not for a long while yet, hopefully. But they lived long full lives. That helps with the grieving.
There are major moments for all of us, those first steps, first words. First days in preschool, kindergarten, first grade, the move to middle school and high school. The annual birthday markers. Skating parties and their massive blisters or parties with piñatas to bring home massive hauls of candy.
Bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs. Baptisms. Quinceañeras.
First days of driving solo. First kiss. For, I expect, a majority of us, first tastes of alcohol (for me, 12) or tobacco (9) or weed (45th birthday). Late bloomer.
First make out sessions (17) and sex (30). Yeah, again, late bloomer.
The high school graduations, our own and the announcements we’d get from cousins or family friends’ children, to whom we’d send a nice pen and pencil set, when people used to use pens and pencils. The first college love. Not crushes. Love. The…