Marking Time
Today’s one of those days. When I awake, too slowly, thinking about my mom; when I know I’m not going to get much done, and will continue to think about my mom throughout December 3.
Today’s one of those days. When time feels out of rhythm; when calendar time is disorienting, and it’s hard to grasp the distance/closeness of the two months of my mom’s death, on October 3.
Today is one of those days when all that my mom was and all that she couldn’t be, when all the abuses etched onto her body as a child-teen-young women and all her ability to nearly always see goodness in people, stand starkly side by side — a testament to strength mixing with fear and trauma to generate the joy, however precariously approximate, that she choose to embody in her being and giving.
Today, nothing will happen. I sit an extended shiva with myself, pondering mitzvahs and love.
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If you’ve run across this blog post as a reposting somewhere, you can find other blog-musings and more polished essays at Outside the Circle, cbmilstein.wordpress.com. Share, enjoy, and repost — as long as it’s free as in “free beer” and “freedom.”
(Photo of my mom on her honeymoon with my dad.)
Outside the Circle 
Cindy, Thanks so much for writing so honestly about the pain and transition of your parents’ recent passings. (I have met you a few times here in NYC.) -Duff
Hey Duff, I definitely remember meeting you several times — and I think I never responded to a nice email from you, when my folks were first sick. I’ve been unable to be as responsible to the rest of my life ever since. Gratitude for your words, and I hope to see you in the near future in NYC.