The City Mouse in the Country

  I don't have a photograph of her. That's what I remember thinking when I learned she had recently passed.  I'm sure somewhere in the boxes scattered throughout my life here in Western Pennsylvania is a picture of Teri and I.  We were married 10 days after September 11th, 2001.   I still remember the day of our marriage, as we scrambled to make sure that we had a back up best man and a back up "father to give away the bride" just in case my best man, who was in the Air Force at the time; and her brother (Navy) were called off to active duty. It was a wonderful open air wedding with great food and lots of dancing and seemed like a great start to our lives. Two young people ready to take on the world.   Needless to say, the world won. Our relationship started off well but by the economic collapse of 2007/2008 we started to show signs of stress.  Sadly I lost my job and fell into a deep depression, I often say that I was "frozen" as I seemed unable...

Pap's info is here .  It's a funny thing, when you know someone has only a limited amount of time.  You wait for that phone call with a mixture of sadness and relief.   Relief in that person has moved on into a better world, or that their suffering has stopped.   In that, you no longer have to worry about them.  It's also a phone call you dread, because that person brought you into the world...and now you are alone. This is an article that I've started and stopped a thousand times.  We always were worried about my dad, much more than my mom.  When she died, it was more of a shock.  Even after 2 + years I'm still not sure if I'm done processing it.  Mostly I just miss talking to her. My dad and I had a good relationship...but not much to talk about.   He was passionate about sports, where as I was more like my mother and was interested more in politics and world affairs.  Still though, we played catch for hours, he ta...