March 8, 2004

Three years ago today it was a Monday. It was like any other day--school, work, Nat's wrestling match and Burger King for supper afterwards. Three years ago today everything was perfect--I don't think I had ever been happier or more in love. We had already started watching spring training games for the Red Sox with no idea this would be the year they actually won the World Series. The future looked so wonderful. I had already started imagining myself sitting in the stands watching him coach a high school girls basketball team. They tell you that after three years it gets easier--well, the pain may get pushed to the back of your heart and mind, but it never really goes away--it's always right there just under the surface, waiting to take you by surprise. Right after he died I used to have vivid dreams that he had come back and we would get him to the doctor so nothing would happen to him. Everything stopped on that Tuesday--sure, life goes on, but it can never be the same--Phil, Sarah, Aaron, Nat, and Abby will never be the same. I had hoped by this point that I would understand why, but that's one question I still can't answer. W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues" expresses pretty well how I feel, so here it is:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.