Hole in the Heart Diaries

dad’s obit

I like to read obituaries. I like to read between the lines. Guess I like sad stories.Some dead persons, though, have had charmed lives, free of poverty, physical ugliness, racism. Hard to imagine. Is fictionalizing is ok, but outright lying is not? How would one get caught in a lie such as that? Who would press charges? Is it a misdemeanor or felonious?

My mother died in August. My father died in last month. I was estranged from them until the very, very end. As if I had any control over such epics. I feel newborn sometimes; I have certainly never understood reincarnation and the feeling of deja vu.I t always feels like the first time to me. Unexpectedly raw.

When all the boomers were being born, we were sure to be writing the rules ourselves, handed the purse,drawing a bead on time itself. It would never go backwards from here. Of course it was the boys with the lion’s share. They would grow to be what every father had always wanted, sure cocks-men with a benevolent side, lusty, fair and long-lived. Their daughters would be at peace with their beauty and grace.The very ground beneath their feet would be forever conquered.They’d leave the Earth for distant stars and place their feet on the necks of whoever lived there.

That’s a lot to live up to, and many of us disappointed. All our parents ever really had was a belief in the superiority of their progeny. They were so, so wrong. I hope they can see now the narrow-mindedness of their monotheism.

That’s real unlikely.