The tears in my father's eyes...

Eight hours after we had gotten the horrible news...

My father was looking at a picture of his family. It had him, his two brothers, two sisters, and both his parents...over half of them gone. If a similar photo were to be taken today...there would be more empty space than people filling it.
He didn't notice I was watching him.

He didn't see my tear edging out, mirroring the one which had just fallen from him.
He didn't know that his private moment of pain was something I will remember for the rest of my life.
I have no idea what he was thinking and it seemed almost obscene to even ask or interfere with his thoughts. He was opening some oh-so private mental scrap book and flipping through its pages. He was reliving things which, even with his gift for story-telling, would only be stories to me and my brothers...to him, they were life.


My uncle Tim's death came as suddenly as anything can. Days after the passing of my grandmother, but before her funeral...he died.
Two funerals had to be planned in different states.

I could see a pain, an ache, in my father I had never seen before. It was a hurt so brutish, a lifetime of tears would only scratch the surface. It made me wonder how the last surviving person of a family line must feel...how alone. Tim Newberry was like an older brother to me, but he really was a brother to my father...I cannot begin to comprehend the true sorrow.

As the days go by, things will get easier for my dad. Time can do many things, but contrary to what most people say, it does not heal pain. If someone loses an arm, after years of work, they can manage to do most tasks effectively enough...but, they are still missing an arm. It is the same with death.
It may take months or years, but people learn to live. However, the loved-one is gone. There is no coming back, no prosthetic, which will replace the lost person...they are nothing more than a collection of images stored in a mental scrap book.

In his dueling hours of grief, my brothers and I stood at the side of our father and greeted it as an honor.

It is my hope...no...it is my prayer, that we did some good.

He is flying home, even as I write. I pray he can recover from this. I pray he will be able to relax and get some rest. I pray he can find some reason to smile, laugh. I pray...there will be no more tears in my father's eyes.