Last Saturday we buried my dad.
As soon as we left the cemetery, Rick and I went home and packed to go up north. I thought I would be swamped with memories when I first saw the house. After all, Dad had lived there until we made him move down to an apartment nearer to us. But I really felt the loss more on the trip up to the house.
I pictured being about 10 years old, or younger, sitting in the back seat with him driving the family up north for vacation. I remembered seeing the scene through my 10-year-old viewpoint. My brother sat next to me in the back seat, behind my dad. My mom was in the front passenger seat. I remember looking over the seat through the front windshield at the highway ahead. I also remember feeling that we were a family, a happy family, and our vacation was ahead of us.
The pain this memory caused was tangible. How many years ago was that vacation? How many decades? More than I care to remember. I only know that the time seemed to flash by in an instant. And now I was making the same trip up north that we had so many times. Only today it was after burying my father next to my mother.
Time goes on. But it takes some getting used to.