Maria

A golden half moon was still high in the navy blue sky when I tip-toed from the house. The OC had left at 5 a.m. to take Lily to the airport, back to her boys. But there were sons and grandchildren still sleeping within. I'd tried, but sleep would not come back, so, off to the trees with me to quiet the internal din.

I hugged my sweater 'round me in the damp and chilly air and walked. The birds were waking up, alerting sleepyheads to the arrival of a new day. As I walked, the sky was quickly paling from navy to ever-lighter blue. The first few arrows of sunlight shot between the pines.

The moon still hung in the remnants of the night, and I wondered.

"Is she watching from way up there?"

Can she see her children, how their hearts are breaking? Can she, from so far away, comfort them, when no one else can?

Now that she is finally free, can she watch over the man she married sixty four years ago? Protect him from himself, from his anger at the world, from his bitterness? Console him when he seems inconsolable? He seemed, all those years, to be the strong one. But now, in the cold light of dawn, I realize he was not.

Maria was the rock, the strength, the heart of her family. She just let him think it was him.

And now she's gone.

May she rest in peace.