The Opening of a Wound

It was a memorial service for a man I hardly knew. Yet there I was in my seat, tears flowing uncontrollably.

The pain I feel at the loss of my sister resides within me always. Most times, most days, it remains hidden, the raw skin healed over. But there are moments, yesterday one of them, where the wound is as fresh as if it had just been incurred.

A son of the man who had died was eulogizing his father. He spoke eloquently and passionately about his dad. About the qualities that endeared parent to child. And then it happened.

You see, he told those who now gathered, his wife was pregnant. And the one thing his father had wanted, the only thing he would regret in his passing, was if he could not meet that grandchild. And while his father's wish was not fulfilled, he had received a sonogram image of his grandchild in waiting. A picture he carried with him always in those final days.

It struck far too close to the heart, a virtual recital of the anguish my family endured less than a year past. And so there I was in an auditorium filled with people who were strangers to me, mourning a man who had but touched the lives of my children many years ago. My children who, along with my wife, now sat beside me. They alone knowing why my tears had burst forth.

It was a very difficult, painful instant. But then it was over. Soon enough I gathered myself and moved through the rest of my day. My sister once more tucked safely in the recesses of my brain. Never out of mind. Never out of reach. But hidden, until the next time life brings her to the surface.