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My great grandmother, May, could feel the weather. My great grandfather, Steve, could read the clouds. I can feel a thousand things but their depth of feeling and connection to their surroundings has confounded me.
Our perception of the world around us, of time, is a curiosity. My own sense of time has changed fundamentally over the years: I mean to describe a part of it here.

Many find calendars indespensible: it meters our commerce, vocations, and leisure. It fixes memory to the head of a pin.

I loathe it.

I believe the observed New Year of the Gregorian calendar is artificial; this synthetic construct has served only to disrupt our circadian rhythms. It confuses and disrupts what was once the domain of nature. Did my forebears suffer the same nagging sensation of imbalance?

My alternative is not revolutionary or unique, though my ritual may be. Necessity forces me to follow convention, however, I privately observe my own calendar. My year ends with the terminus of fall — a natural time for one to reflect. It is a time of harvest, of plenty: an opportunity to survey the labors of the spring and summer and take measure of what has been done. It is this harvest of memory that I treasure above all fall rituals. It is a time to gather what I have sown and draw it close to sustain me during the long winter.

Memories grow distant and long, just as the shadows, in fall. It is in these memories that I meditate and take communion with my past.

I have learned to live with loss; I suppose we all do at some point in our lives. Today marks six years since my brother Chris passed away.

Loss defines.

I remarked to friends and family in the days after he was gone that everything mattered more. Each choice, each action, each in-action: each would be measured against a more perfect ideal and each would require meaning. After six years I have realized this pursuit is fruitless — I cannot find meaning and purpose where there is not any. I cannot make reason from unreasonable circumstances. I can not make possible the impossible. What his loss has taught me, though, is that I can learn to love and accept and prioritize.

I have made my peace, imperfect as it is, with his loss. I have found meaning in those empty and vagabond days after he left. I learned that I can love for an eternity without condition or possession: that I can love an idea, a memory.

I vowed to teach my children about their Uncle — their Uncle Chris. I talk to my daughter Grace about him each night and she now says his name: Unka Kiss. For now, this is enough.

I miss our shared history. I miss my sounding board. I miss my brother.

With all that I miss, I still have love.

We accumulate things — it seems to be a secondary vocation for Americans. I am guilty of retaining things with little purpose, small sentimental items that I promise to someday give appropriate deference. My wife lost her uncle Mike shortly after her grandmother passed. These consecutive losses weigh on the family, each impressing their own terrible weight upon each who loved them. Mike lived in a cold-water, single room flat in Saint Paul and it was the responsibility of my wife’s siblings and their spouses to help empty his apartment. Clearing the detritus accumulated in a lifetime is a formidable task. In surveying his space I found myself asking why far too often: why would one retain an object like this? What meaning could it have had? I searched for answers as we packed his belongings away. I found scraps of paper squirreled away with wisdom and insight scrawled upon them. Mike suffered schizophrenia — his prose was spare, precise, and biting. His choice of language was curious and engaging. I was distracted from the business at hand — searching for details of a hidden man. I connected with his writing, read it closely and deeply. I searched for meaning, purpose to his endeavors. As the time passed that day I began to understand that I would never really know this man, this enigma. He eluded me. Mike is a wonder. He earned accolades and merits and favor, yet what was most important to him was the love and approval of his family. In considering the dense body of work he left behind it is clear that this was his priority — it defined him. In the end this was his lesson to me.

Christians believe death is a celebration. As a catholic I know it as a sacrament, and having lost my brother five years ago, a reality. My wife lost her grandmother yesterday — ninety-three full years ended on a cold sunny day.

She died on the morning of Saint Patrick’s Day. Her offspring mused that their father could not bear to spend another feast day alone and had called her home — I knew in my heart she would go on this day. The incredulous component: I knew. We all did.

Many came to pay their respects during the wake on Monday. I felt oddly out of place. I had not been in this kind of situation since my brother’s death — my actions during that time were automatic, almost natural and now I felt discomfort and a compulsion to hide myself. I thought it odd that my experience could differ in such vast and disturbing ways. I should know what to say, how to comfort, how to empathise; I feel I came up empty and cool far too often. I have no explanation for my reaction and am unwilling to speculate. I miss Grandma Sully. I miss my brother. This is enough for me.

I will spare you the details of the burial mass as it is an experience which I selfishly protect. It belongs to each who mourn — find your own sorrows if you must.

Grandma Sully is a gift.

I refuse to use the past tense.