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A year has gone by and I haven't even been to his grave.
Can't seem to find the time.
Rubbish.
Tonight I opened the brass mailbox downstairs and opened an envelope from an aunt I've not seen in quite some time. I thought, photographs, she knows about my conversations with Fritz and she's sending photos.
Way off.
Money.
His money.
Their money.
And I haven't even paid my respects.
The last time was after her funeral. Way after.
Just before the house sold I went there and cut flowers and branches from her favorite trees. I placed them on her grave while he thought of earlier years and wasted away in some home, somewhere.
Funny how the past finds you unprepared.
I remember the neglect at her grave site. Nobody had been there for a long, long time. I had trouble finding it, there is no stone, only a bronze plate with the name and dates.
Margaret Carlson Wilson
September 26, 1912 – December 12, 1992
That day I gave him my jacket because in his grief he couldn't find his. I remember afterward getting my jacket back minus the twenty in the front right pocket. Strange the things you remember.
I remember that because I needed it to get home. Gas money. I had to ask for it back. He thought it was his. The Alzheimer's was apparent even then. I felt bad. I never said goodbye.
The last time I saw him he thought I was my father. It was the most I ever heard him speak, but somewhere in his mind I was long gone. A wisp of a memory. The grandchild that had forgotten him.
The grandchild who would not even show up at his funeral.
The grandchild who can't find the time to visit the grave. I guess they're buried together. Matching bronze plaques.
April 16, 1997.
That was the day.
But it was over long before that. Long before they played Hymn 11. Before the prayer and the lessons and the meditation. Before the affirmation of faith. Before the benediction. Long before any of these I had walked out of the service to my own postlude.
I loved them so much...
Not enough to pay my respects.
But if I may...
William Wilson was born in 1902, Brooklyn, NY.
He did a lot of things.
He did a lot for the world and for people.
He worked with the IESC in El Salvador, Columbia, Greece, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, and the Philippines.
I've coins from all these countries and more that they worked in. I've looked at them countless numbers of times.
I've rubbed their faces and thought of their lives. I've envied them. I thanked them. But I've done it in private. Like hanging onto their things. All private. Almost, but never quite forgotten.
And now this.
A check.
The estate broken. The house fallen. And I, the least of the line. The last Wilson.
Do I feel guilt?
No. I'm beyond that. I'm sad. I can feel them watching. I still talk to her, but never him.
Never him.
And I loved him so much
Yeah, I do feel guilty. But not about the money. That just brought it all back. I feel because I haven't yet felt...understand? I have some things to do. I've some lose ends dangling in the wind. I've someone to say goodbye to.
I gotta go...
goodnight 6.16.98
