And Then There Were None

The emptiness and silence this morning is oppressive and deafening after having been immersed in other presence longer these past two weeks than at any time for decades.

For all of June, until my mother left yesterday, I’ve been something other than Fred First, Lone Wolf Freelance Treehugger (70%), husband (5%) and bum (25%).

With mom and my daughter and her daughters and husband, I wore so many other hats there for a while, and am hatless suddenly, and a bit lost for what to do with myself. Those times have already drifted off downstream.

The flow of time. I was in mom’s guest room just now, and found a printed copy of a little summer story we put in a frame once to give a friend, who had gained a remission from his cancer. And soon thereafter, he died.

They move downstream so quickly.

And so the old normal has flooded back in, and I’m Fred the lawn and garden tender, the blogger, the occasional photographer, dreamer, wordsmith and human servant of the dog of the house. And life goes on.

That visitation, those old once familiar roles–that was good. But so is this.

To everything there is a season. There is a time to laugh, a time to play, a time to be a grampa. And there is a time to get dirty, sweaty, and worn plumb out fighting back the entropy of relentless vegetation.

I now live in the latter season. I gotta go.