It was my mom's birthday a few days ago. I had a martini and bought a lottery ticket--which is the way I celebrate now that she no longer enjoys these earthly delights.
It's an odd feeling to have both parents gone. Sometimes I feel like a pale balloon, disconnected from the people who landed me here.
A dear friend sent me this book,"Heartwood" by Barbara Becker. It arrived on my mom's birthday. I've just begun to read it. Here's what the author says about the title which comes from the name for the central core of a tree.
"...this supporting pillar no longer participates in the life process of a tree--transporting and storing water and nutrients. Although dead, heartwood will not decay or lose its sturdiness while the outer, living rings of newer growth sustain it. In the perfect ecology of a tree, the dead become the heart of the living, and the living nourish the enduring essence of the dead."
So that's what I was doing with that martini--nourishing the enduring essence of the dead.
Every night as I settle into bed in my freshly painted room, I think of my dead loved ones. And how it is to love the dead. It's so different from how we love the living. To be able to touch. To be able to talk. These are the profound joys of the living.
