Stand-up comic Steven Wright (suggested motto, "I was much funnier in the 80s") had a one-liner about what it's like to reminisce with strangers. I won't bore you with the whole thing, but my dad always loved that dumb joke. As it turns out, when I was mourning his loss, I sort of did end up doing a version of that. Just another one of those things that have happened since I've been cut off from him that he would have found amusing. I could fill a whole separate blog with those.
The day after the funeral I flew back home. I hadn't seen my kids in ten days, and I needed to be home. We live in the town where my wife grew up. She's got roots here, so we've got roots. Take it from a guy who in the span of fifteen weeks became a dad for the third time and lost a parent: roots are everything.
I've lived in my adopted home town for several years now, but my dad was only ever a visitor here. His home was a thousand miles away. But our house was very crowded all three nights of shiva. One of the nights there were so many kids running around that we thought they would come crashing through the ceiling from upstairs. Joyful noise indeed. Most of the visitors had never met the man, which made the gesture all the more meaningful to me. All these months later I am still deeply touched when I think about it. In the aftermath, my wife and I said to each other that we need to make more of an effort to be there for everyone the way everyone was there for us.
Cancer is horrible. Losing a loved one is horrible. But if you are lucky, even those experiences will afford you a chance to see some of the good things about your life that you didn't know were there. I already was well aware that my town is not like most other places, but the way my friends and neighbors came together to be with me showed me beyond any doubt that this place truly has become my home.
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