XXIV

It's impossible to believe it's been 24 years.

24 years to the day when I had to tell my sons,
then 4 and 10,
that their father was dead, at the age of 39,
from a heart attack.

There were days I wasn't sure the boys would survive 24 minutes
living with that reality;
we'd be lucky to get through the next 24 hours...

and now it's been years.

Losing a parent at that age
is a life changer.

We're not the same people we were then.

Tom, we might have gotten some things wrong,
but the boys
are the best things we ever did.

You would love,
and be proud of,
the men they've become.

We miss you.

Death ends a life;
not a relationship.


Ah, when to the heart of man
was it ever less than a treason
to go with the drift of things,
to yield with a grace to reason,
and bow and accept the end
of a love or a season.
Robert Frost