15 and 25 Make…

40 cents or a very long time? Today is the marker the day my Dad passed away 25 years ago, nabbed by Cancer.

Then ten years later to the day, the morning where I called Mom from my road trip across Canada. We laughed and talked about the sadness of missing Dad, then 10 years gone. And what we do in a month when I visited her in Florida.

How would I know less then 12 hours later while having dinner in Belleville that I’d get the call from my sister that Mom was gone. Heart attack.

It was somewhat numbing. I retold the story to Cori and Jessy Lee that the tears were not there at the funeral nor while my sisters and I packed up Moms stuff.

It was on the last day of my long odyssey road trip, somewhere in the dark on Highway 87 south of Winslow. I was watching the odometer in Red Dog hit the 15000 mile mark for the trip. At that moment on my iPod shuffle came up randomly the Rolling Stones song “She’s a Rainbow.”

That was when the tears came. Three months later.

See it was that night in Belleville I was visiting Andy Forgrave, who was a great comfort and listened to my stories about Mom. He asked if he could play a song that he felt matched the stories. That song was… “She’s a Rainbow”

She comes in colours ev’rywhere
She combs her hair
She’s like a rainbow
Coming, colours in the air
Oh, everywhere
She comes in colours

I had to pull off the highway for all the tears, maybe 30 miles from closing the loop on that long trip.

Ten years to the day, 15 and 25 years ago. My sister just texted this most classic photo of my parents on the beach at Ocean City Maryland. Look how happy and alive they look. She’s rainbow.

I see in the background the condo they built in front of the place we would go every year, the Surfrider, a two story building with 3 lodging places. That condo blocked our direct view of the boardwalk!

I can see Aldo behind it the old Stowaway hotel on 21st street. Go in that direction, turn left on 21st and our place was on the next side street. Go another block or two west on 21st and you’d be at the original Phillips Crab House.

15 and 25. How does that all mold into the normal? It happens but is soothed by remembering the stories, the feel of being on that beach.

In honor of them, I’m picking weeds for Dad and looking for Mom’s butterflies.

15 and 25.

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Featured Image: framed photo of mom and dad’s wedding portrait that hangs on our photo wall, with a (Canadian) quarter on dad and a dime and nickel on Mom.