what of endings?

I was still on speed dial. “You picked up,” was the first you said to me. It was very unfamiliar to talk to you, especially for this long, especially when you’ve called me.

You mentioned dying. That you were dying. I asked you how you felt about that but I don’t recall the answer. I think because you seemed content with it. I asked you about your regrets of which you had none. I asked you what was most important to you in life and you claimed family. I didn’t find that honest.

I don’t know where to hold you. How to end this. I never felt close to you. We shared some of the same interests. Crosswords. Computers. Cooking. But you couldn’t open yourself up. You never learned to open yourself up. I felt hatefulness, selfishness, misunderstandings.

You dropped out of college. Were you in the military? You were an immigrant’s grandson. He fled Italy from nationalists and you bred one. You were an addict. A spendthrift. A proud man. And being a “man” really meant something to you.

What a bizarre marriage you had. What did you love in life? What made you sad? You were very sad. But intelligent. Why did you name your cat after my other grandma?

You financially supported your children your entire life. Until the day you died. Why?

What of endings? How do we end this? Or how does this grow? What will I continue to learn about you or think about you? So much of me is from you. Your trauma, in me. Your genes and bloodline, in me. Why does my body feel like bursting through my skin over you? Is it about you? Loss on loss on loss unending. I will go back and not recognize. I will go back to lost landmarks. Home. Home? Where the bones are buried. Where the body lies. That’s home.

Bring back vials of dirt to reconnect. I don’t feel the beginning yet but it’s there. With this many elders gone, it’s here.