There should have been a sign, at least something more than a silent shrug.
At the risk of seeming grandiose, maybe a basso rumble thundering out of blackening skies.
Or maybe a spectacularly large aircraft trailing a purple and white banner, declaring that old times, the only ones I have known, are over.
Three weeks from tonight is the second anniversary of Pop’s death, on the eve of his 94th birthday.
The other day, the last remaining link from Pop’s generation, his sister, went into hiding, against her will.
She proved the thesis of my wife the nurse practitioner that virtually no one who lives a lengthy life can elude a mental breakdown.
At 91 years old, 55 years after leaving home to live by herself and 70 years after determining she was the only sibling not likely to marry, she was taken to a home for the mentally impaired.
She often vowed she would outlive all of her siblings, and she is almost there. The sister to whom she was closest lives in a room just down the corridor, her home since shortly after her husband died eight years ago.
We can surround my aunt with polish, with chocolate icing and a bouquet of heartfelt words. Even though my wife says she could live for years, does it really matter?
It is over. Each day she descends darker, narrower steps into a blackness so forbidding that just like actual death, no one ever returns.
Pop’s death was a blow in an auxiliary way because he was the final link to my hometown, where I spent 18 almost exclusively happy years growing up.
Memories, however flimsy or sturdy, are all that survives, and memories can be as transitory as the fluffy, puffy cloud winking at me at this moment from mid-sky.
The gates to my hometown are not locked, but there would be almost no reason to ever turn off the engine.
Luckily, I was able to say goodbye to Pop. Even though I postcard her every week, I never had the same chance.
