Have Some of My Melancholy

I felt so much more grief when my parents were alive than now that they are dead. They died like Irish twins, seven months apart. I guess mid century, they thought they were going to sow a super race of pretty girls and smart boys.

A friend of Grunt from childhood came over the other evening. I showed him a photo of my parents on Long Island Sound in Milford.I point this out to all the young adults. My mother holds me with some difficulty. I’m long and swaddled in a snowsuit. My father looks at the camera. He is holding a small shaggy lab pup. It was his consolation prize for not getting a son as his first born. He was called Checkers.He must have white on him somewhere for that name to make any sense.The most surprising part of this photo is that they both look to be genuinely smiling.The tide was out and it must have been cold. My face is not entirely seen as I’m propped in my mothers arms.The snowsuit hides my age.15,16,17,18,months?
I think my mother believed I was unhappy from the moment I was born. Doesn’t seem likely. I’m too young to understand love.I’m to young to understand frustration,anger or grief.
But I’m feeling much less grief lately, and for that I’m grateful.
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