Poetic...

When Dad died on Mom's birthday I said it would take me awhile to figure out the poetic part of it. It took until Mom died to do it, but I think I have.

The start of it came to me this year on her birthday. And this is where I tell you again that I knew it was going to be this year for Mom. I kept couching it by saying, "I could be wrong. Women in her family live really long lives." But that voice in my head kept saying, "It's this year. This is the last year." And on her birthday I thought to myself, "At least this will be the last year she has to be reminded of Dad's death every time someone tells her "happy" birthday." And when I thought of that for some reason I pictured Dad just sitting there, waiting. 

Then Mom died.

On Kelsey's birthday.

The day I really didn't want it to happen.

But almost immediately I was filled with an "of course" feeling.  The circle just closed.

And I found my poetic reason.

Mom was Dad's life. She just was. She was the center of his universe. You see families sometimes that are clearly about the kids. The kids are the center and everything else revolves around them. That was not my life growing up. We all knew that the primary relationship was theirs and we all came second.

In the Jewish faith life begins at the first breath. A pregnancy is a life under construction. A vessel for the soul is being made. But life? That starts at birth. The first breath is taken and the soul enters the body. Life. Now, my mother was an Evangelical so her definition was a little different but as Evangelicals my parents thought of the Jewish people as God's Chosen People. So...

My father's life really began with Mom's first breath. He lived for two years on his own, but once she was born he was set on the path to her. That's what I've decided. And once they were together and they took that breath together for the first time? His real life started. His whole life. She was his life. And so on her birthday, when you mark the time the soul enters the body and you begin, he left his body behind and waited with her. My imagination says that maybe on your birthday you are a little more permeable, you are primed to let in a soul, the echo of that first time is there. And so Dad left the vessel that had carried him and found a cozy corner in Mom to hang out and wait.

It's why she could see him places, could hear him, could talk to him. He was there, with her, waiting.

And then when it came time for her to leave this world she closed the circle. The oldest of our family passing on the birthday of the youngest. I like to think that she took Dad and they went to see Kelsey, to introduce Dad to her, maybe in a dream. Because you are more open on your birthday. That way Kelsey was with them both for a minute in her life as well. I can see my mother introducing my father to her and then them holding hands and walking away. The circle closed.

I like my poetic version of the why. It's so much better than sometimes life is shitty and shitty things happen at the shittiest of times. So I'm going to hold on to this version. Dad died on Mom's birthday so he could continue to be part of her life until she was ready to move on. Mom died on Kelsey's birthday so she could show her off to Dad. And now the circle is closed and Mom and Dad have moved on to whatever is next.

Together.

Because they were each other's lives.

Poetic.