Saturday, March 24, 2012

Alone in a Crowded City


We had a birthday celebration this evening in honor of my mom. It’s so interesting to get together for a purpose like that and the different interactions people have with one another. It was my dad, my sister and her husband and her best friend from out of town, my oldest brother and his wife, my uncle and his three daughters and the boyfriend of the youngest, my other uncle and his two kids, my grandmother, my mom’s best friend, another couple my parents have been good friends with for a long time, Jeff, Addie, and me.
                We’ve had different combinations of this group together in different settings, and I love the feeling when we’re there. Everyone played a role in the person that my mom was, and everyone has special memories to keep her who she is to us. We spent some time sharing stories, which led to smiles, laughter, and tears. To be together in such a comfortable place and share those stories and emotions is a special and wonderful thing.
                It is also exhausting. On the drive home, I looked at the lights across the landscape and wondered how it can be that when we were all together in that house, and Addie was getting laughs by repeating a part of a story about my mom (“Where’s my chicken?!”), everything felt so whole, but looking at those lights and knowing it’s a crowded city, I still felt so alone. 

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