Toby Goodshank Original Art 2025

Life with Chicken and Broccoli

Tag: love

  • The Drop Off

    The Drop Off

    And just like that, after 17 years, my daughter is off and away at college. It seems strange how “just like that” can account for 17 years.

    Seventeen years of raising one of the two most important people in my life on this little blue planet. You try desperately to figure out how the hell all this time went by. So much is lost and forgotten. Pangs of midlife memory failure cause anxiety. Then you go back and look at pictures and remember, or as they now say, recreate the past.

    The little girl who sang with me in her car seat as we drove back and forth from my parents’ house. All the small transitions and big moments that the kids forget but were made for you. All these amazing little gifts that come with raising your own kids.

    The days were often long, filled with a frantic rush to get through them and finally relax watching TV. I’m not saying I want them back, but I could use them once in a while on a slow weekend. I could use a good dose of Sesame Street and a bowl of cereal. Some Elmo and Abby Cadabby floating around the screen.

    It all seems surreal, and I feel so many things all the time, swirling around my head.

    There are different feelings you have as a dad versus a mom. My job is to pack the car tightly, making sure all the necessary, and completely unnecessary, things make it to the dorm room. We had to take two cars, and for me that is never a problem.

    James, my son and little best friend, rides with me. Olivia, Mom, and Aunt Mandy are in car two.

    I stay busy with dad’s work, the Tetris car packing and lifting the heavier objects into the car. What a difference from when I was a kid. There are no TVs, no heavy-ass CRT monitors, stereo systems, or heavy tower computers.

    Just lots of extra clothes and outfits that may work one day if the moon is just right.

    Also, cleaning supplies?

    I never brought or had one cleaning supply of any kind in my dorm room. It made me laugh to think about how different girls and boys can be.

    My wife deserves all her flowers because she has been planning, buying, and figuring out everything Olivia would need for months. She has quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, felt the weight of this transition more than anyone. Through all of it, she has been absolutely amazing and continues to be the best wife and mother anyone could hope for.

    People would ask me if I was going to miss her, if I was sad, or how I felt about the transition.

    I do miss her dearly.

    She was always in her room doing her own thing, but there was proximity, and that was enough. I could periodically go to her door and knock, of course, check in, and see what she was doing. She would be pretending to read or do work while quickly hiding her phone as she texted her friends.

    She is still so very much my little girl, who has been sheltered at home and away from so many of life’s storms. There is this constant tension between keeping them safe and allowing them to grow up without a care, and then one day dropping them off in a strange new world.

    The day went smoothly. We got her all set up and ready to conquer the next chapter of her life, and then just like that, you are off and back home.

    The transition has been difficult, and she misses us dearly. It is such a large adjustment, with so many changes all at once. Today my wife is going back up to the school. It’s hard to be surrounded by so many people and still feel all alone. I remember different times when I first went away to school and felt that way, especially when the friends I had made went back home on the weekends to work.

    A new room with a roommate, new people, new routines, new expectations. The fear of the unknown. No familiar bedroom down the hall. No kitchen to wander into. No little check-ins throughout the day. All the things that seemed so ordinary suddenly become the things you miss the most.

    It is good that we are all so close and that we communicate. I know she will navigate this transition with the same grace she has shown in everything else in her life. It may take some time, and that is okay. There is no rule that says you have to feel at home the moment you arrive somewhere new.

    So more than missing her, I am optimistically happy, grateful, and excited for her. For all the new things she will experience, the people she has not met yet, the friendships that will become lifelong, the mistakes she will make and learn from, and the confidence that will come from figuring things out without us standing right beside her.

    I know she will come home different. Not unrecognizable and not less ours, just a little more herself. Maybe that is the hardest and best part of raising kids. You spend all those years building a home around them, keeping them safe, feeding them, driving them everywhere, worrying about them, laughing with them, getting annoyed with them, and loving them more than you knew was possible.

    And then one day, if you did your job right, they leave. You pack the car, carry the boxes, make the bed, give the hugs, and walk back to the car.

    Somehow 17 years fits inside that one drive home.

    I miss her, but more than that, I am proud of her. I cannot wait to see who comes walking back through our door.

  • High School Graduation

    High School Graduation

    It has been said before, and it will be said until the end of time, but I cannot believe how quickly it all went by. So here we are. My daughter, my little girl, my baby, is graduating from high school.

    We were instructed not to cheer and to hold our applause until the end, but the moment the names began to be read, the stands erupted like ravaging hordes at the Colosseum. Every family shouted for their person. Our family was spread across the field and throughout the stands, and when your name was read, I roared as loudly as I could. I shouted your name from somewhere deep inside my body and actually hurt my lower back.

    What a treat and a blessing it is to grow old.

    We watched you walk forward with confidence and poise, with the perfect posture of an elegant young lady receiving her diploma. You were draped in the cords of your academic achievements, proudly displayed for everyone to see, and our hearts were filled with joy and love for you.

    Watching you brought me back to my own graduation from Newtown High School. Sometimes I joke that I have not made much progress because I am still living in the same town where I grew up, but watching you walk forward made me see it differently. Staying here was a choice, not a punishment. It has been a blessing to give you the same small-town upbringing that helped shape me. How incredibly fortunate we are to call this place home.

    I wasted a lot of my time here when I was young. I did not always appreciate what was around me, and I did not always make the most of what I had.

    You did.

    You lived here. You worked hard, participated, showed up, and made something of your time. There is an old saying that things are what you make of them, and you made something beautiful out of these years.

    When I graduated, the ceremony was held in the auditorium, and I honestly do not remember much of anything. I do not remember who I sat next to. I could probably guess by thinking about which other last names beginning with G were near mine. I do not remember the speeches, who gave them, or what they said. I do not even remember whether they pronounced our last name correctly, although they probably did not.

    I remember that I received my diploma.

    I hope you remember more than I did. I hope you remember who spoke, what was said, who sat beside you, and what it felt like to hear your name. I hope you let it sink deeply into your mind and become a happy memory that you can carry with you.

    But if one day the details begin to fade, that is okay too. You are still a kid, and there is so much life waiting to live. Even if you forget some of the details, you will still be you.

    And if you ever come back and read this, I want you to know what it looked like from our side of the stands.

    Your parents loved you. We poured our hearts into you, along with our hopes and dreams. Your Mima, aunts and uncle were there, excited and screaming your name. Everyone was watching you with pride. We were celebrating you, hats and everything.

    You were our person, and you will always be our person.

    I am so proud of the way you have begun your journey and of the strong footing you have created for yourself. So many of the pitfalls I created in my own life, you have swung neatly over. You will never have to know some of the struggles I created for myself, and that may be one of the greatest gifts a parent can receive.

    You are not following my path. You are beginning your own.

    You have taken everything we gave you and made it better. That is how it is supposed to work. Each generation takes the family story a little farther down the road of life, and now it is your turn to carry ours forward.

    I do not know exactly where the road will take you, but I know how you are stepping onto it. You are walking forward with the confidence, grace, and poise of a lifelong dancer, the same qualities that carried you across that field.

    We will continue to watch with eager anticipation as you move on to college. I am so excited for you and for all the new experiences, challenges, and people waiting for you there. We get to watch the beautiful tapestry of your life being stitched together in real time.

    We will always be there. I will always be there, loving you to the moon and back.

  • The Greatest Thing He Ever Built

    The Greatest Thing He Ever Built

    We all knew that when Aunt Lucy passed, it would not be long before Uncle Sal joined her. It is deeply saddening to understand that and to watch it unfold, especially for the children who so desperately want more time with their parents. But it is not about us, nor is it within our power, to stop a choice like that, even when we do everything we can to hold it back. Reflecting now on my own parents, I know it was in God’s hands, and I trust in that always. More than that, I am thankful for this beautifully poetic example of marriage, the union of two souls so completely entwined that one could not remain here for long without the other.

    I am deeply grateful for Uncle Sal. We had a special relationship. I say sincerely that he was the grandfather I never had but always wanted. Some family members may have thought I was simply being gracious by spending so much time talking with him, but our relationship was never about sympathy. We were kindred spirits. We were both curious, both drawn to what other people thought, and so we asked each other questions endlessly. Big questions, small questions, and everything in between. Government, work, finances, marriage, children, purpose. We were both smart enough to understand how much we did not know, and excited by the chance to hear the other speak. There was no ego in it, only humility and a real desire to listen, to think, to be surprised, and to stand amazed at life.

    Uncle Sal understood his purpose with a kind of quiet clarity. He had found something so many people miss while trying to play the game of life by other people’s rules. He learned long ago that life is malleable, and so he made his own rules. Then, like a piece of wood in his hands, he shaped them and refined them until they became simple and true. He found a way to win each day, and because of that he was able to be present in the moment and enjoy his life. All the little things we are meant to cherish and appreciate, he did.

    I think we both loved not knowing almost as much as knowing. There was joy in discovery, in mystery, in hearing a new thought and turning it over together. He was a Renaissance man in the truest sense, interested in everything around him. He wanted to learn, to experience, and to play in the world. He always described himself as simple and uneducated in his self deprecating way, but his curiosity made him so much more. He was an artist, a musician, a tinkerer, and a space explorer. He spoke Italian and English, played chess, loved nature, and was an avid walker. There was far more depth in him than he ever gave himself credit for.

    He was a carpenter by trade, but even more by passion. He loved wood, loved working with his hands, and loved making something lasting and beautiful out of what the world had given him. He was always building, always creating, always shaping something for someone else. An Uncle Sal work of art. A fully articulating standing clock. Wood inlay paintings. The family elves he made for us, each one with a Christmas name from a different language. The time he got lost and scared his family because he had pulled off to the side of the road for hours to paint a beautiful vista that had caught his eye. His hands were never still for long because his heart was curious and always ready to play.

    And for all the things he made with his hands, the greatest thing he ever built was a life rooted in love. He taught me, and reminded me, that the simplest things in life are the greatest things. And none was greater to him than his love for his wife and family. He looked upon Lucy as an angel. Always. I never heard him complain. I never heard him ask for more. I never heard him wish for some different road. He loved as we are all meant to love, selflessly, freely, without keeping score, and without asking for anything in return. His advice on a successful marriage that lasts was simple. He would say, “I work hard and hand over my paycheck to Lucy, no questions asked.” His was an endless well, overflowing with devotion, tenderness, and grace.

    I think often of John 14 and Jesus’ promise to prepare a room for us in His Father’s house. I can picture Sal arriving there and being shown to his room, plain and simple at first, sparse and untouched. But he would know immediately that there are no limits now. No constraints. No weakness in the body. No shortage of time. And so he would begin. He would reshape that room into something only he could imagine, some great woodworking cathedral filled with the richest woods, carved and polished into magnificence. The walls and ceilings would soon be covered in inlaid scenes of nature, heaven, and earth. Beauty rising everywhere under his hands. He would run out of room quickly and begin working into the hallway. By the time the rest of us arrive, I would not be surprised if Jesus Himself had to move into another house just to make space for all that Sal had created.

    So now, as he leaves this world, I do not think of loss alone. I think of gratitude. I think of laughter, questions, wood shavings on the floor, and the quiet strength of a man who understood what mattered. He lived simply, loved deeply, and left beauty wherever he went. And though we will miss him here in ways words cannot hold, I trust that heaven has already placed tools in his hands and love all around him. More than this, my heart rejoices that he will be reunited with his love and finally know peace.

  • Aruba with Friends

    Aruba with Friends

    Aruba with friends was a long time coming and a long time in the making.

    I have always felt that traveling with other people usually comes with a certain amount of friction. A few issues. A few inconveniences. A little nonsense here and there. That just seems to be part of the deal whenever multiple families, multiple personalities, and multiple rhythms try to move together in one place.

    But Aruba, at least to me, is one of those rare places that almost cannot be ruined.

    The trade winds do something magical there. They seem to blow through every irritation before it can take root. They lift heaviness off the day. They carry away tension before it has the chance to settle in. Everything feels lighter there. Easier. Softer around the edges.

    And somehow, this trip turned out even better than I imagined.

    Maybe that is part of getting older. You slowly begin to understand that the real treasures in life are not places at all, but people. Even the most beautiful setting in the world becomes a little less beautiful if there is no one beside you to witness it. Paradise without companionship is still lovely, but it is incomplete. There is a deeper joy in sharing adventures with people you love.

    That is what this trip felt like.

    There is something almost childlike in introducing people you care about to a place that already means something to you. It is like watching your children open presents on Christmas morning. Your own joy is there, of course, but it is magnified by theirs. You get to experience the gift twice. Once as your own memory, and once again through the delight of someone else discovering it for the first time.

    Aruba is a place where you do nothing, and somehow that becomes everything.

    So much of life at home is motion. Constant motion. We are always going somewhere, planning something, fixing something, driving someone, checking a calendar, answering a message, or moving on to the next obligation. Life can begin to feel like an endless list of duties, even when it is full of blessings.

    And then Aruba interrupts all of that. What are we doing today? Nothing.

    We walk. We eat. We sit in the pool. We sit on the beach. We drift and bob in the ocean. We talk about everything and anything. Like Kevin Malone, we dream big and then we double it. We let the wind touch our faces and the sun warm our skin. There are no real plans. No excursions. No need to fill the hours so we can say we made the most of them. No bikes. No quads. No party buses.

    Of course, people can do all of that if they want to. Many do. But for me, the great secret of Aruba is that if you try too hard to conquer it, you miss what it is trying to give you.

    To sit there for hours, almost like a ten hour meditation in the sun, while the wind moves over you again and again, as if it is trying to smooth out the inner life you brought with you. The point is to relax so deeply that you begin to remember who you are underneath all the rushing. To let the moment be enough.

    After enough hours like that, you begin to wonder why anyone ever leaves a place once they find it. Or maybe, more honestly, you begin to wonder why the rest of life cannot feel this simple.

    What also made this trip so special was the kind of people we were with.

    There was no competition between us. No subtle scorekeeping. No trying to outdo one another. No performance. Just families trying to grow well together. Just people trying to raise their children with love, attention, and presence. Just friends trying to build lives that carry forward the good things they were given as children, while hopefully making those lives even a little better for the ones coming after them.

    It matters to be with people who understand that being present is more important than being impressive. People who care about the texture of family life. People who know that the small moments are often the big ones in disguise.

    We also do not judge each other, and that matters more than people realize. If one family wants to do their own thing for a while, that is fine. If someone wants more beach and someone else wants more pool, that is fine too. There is no resentment, no weird pressure, and no keeping score. Everyone should be allowed to enjoy the trip in their own way and find out what doing nothing looks like for them.

    Maybe that is part of why it worked so well. The right place, the right people, and the right expectations.

    In the end, that is what made Aruba with friends so good. Not just the island itself, but getting to share it with people we care about in a way that felt easy, natural, and right. Sometimes it takes a long time for things to come together. Sometimes the group gets smaller. Sometimes plans fall away before the right one finally takes shape.

    And maybe that is how it was supposed to happen.

    Because once we finally got there, it felt simple. It felt peaceful. It felt like one of those experiences that reminds you what actually matters.

  • All State

    All State

    Last night we went to the All State Dance Banquet at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington, Connecticut.

    My daughter was honored there. She was a recipient, a winner, a true star. Newtown had an incredible showing, with eight students recognized in All State Dance and seven in All State Academic. Most other towns seemed to have two or three, and far fewer on the academic side. I have always said we must have good water in Newtown. It grows the kids tall and apparently makes them pretty smart too.

    It was a very special night, and I was so happy to be there celebrating my daughter’s accomplishments. Over the years, my wife and I have often divided and conquered when it came to the kids’ activities. That usually meant my wife and daughter were the ones going on the dance excursions, trips, banquets, and showcases. Because of that, it felt especially important for me to be there. Really, there was never any question that I would be.

    They put on a beautiful event for the young women, and for one young man named Jack, who all the girls from Newtown seemed to know and love.

    My daughter’s journey through these years has truly happened in the blink of an eye. It feels like I just looked up and suddenly she is grown, getting ready to leave for college this fall. Where did all the time go?

    In some ways, time moved slower in the beginning. When she was little, and my wife was commuting to Norwalk, I was the one getting her ready in the morning and bringing her to my mother’s day care, then picking her up later. Those felt like slower days. Sesame Street would be on in the background, and Abby Cadabby would keep watch over her while I got ready for work.

    There are so many things that change as they grow, and then one day they are grown. I saw something recently about how many moments in life happen for the last time without us even realizing it. You only recognize them later, when you stop and think. I found myself thinking about something as simple as holding her hand. How long has it been since we last held hands? The last time she reached for my hand while crossing a road probably felt like yesterday then, but in truth it was many years ago. So many years ago, just like the car seat rides and booster seat rides home, singing songs together in the car.

    There is something natural about the rush to prepare your children for the world, to help them become capable, confident, and independent. That is part of a father’s job. And yet there is also something heartbreaking about doing it well, because the very success of it means they cannot stay young forever. You cannot keep them small. You cannot keep them reaching for your hand. I still think about those quiet moments watching her shows beside me in bed, holding her favorite sippy cup. I have always been sentimental about the past, about the ache and beauty of nostalgia.

    But I am just as grateful now for this new season of her life. For all the firsts still ahead of her. For all the adventures, lessons, friendships, and memories she has yet to make. Last night was not just a celebration of what she has accomplished. It was also a quiet reminder to me that life keeps moving, whether we are ready or not.

    And maybe that is the bittersweet beauty of being a parent. You spend years helping them grow, praying they become strong, capable, and ready for the world. Then one day you look up and realize they are. The little girl who once held your hand is now stepping forward into her own life. It is hard to let go of the old days, but what a gift it is to have lived them. And what a privilege it is to still be here, watching her shine.

  • Coffee is for Closers

    Coffee is for Closers

    “Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers.”

    One of the many lines my father and I used to repeat to each other from Glengarry Glen Ross while we sold insurance together for eighteen years.

    As I sit here doing my accounting on this spring like day, March 10, working through QuickBooks, I am still entering revenue from our old health insurance business. I started in insurance with my father right after my glorious quitting at GE. I burned those bridges well and good. Quickly and abruptly. I had my fill of the long hours in accounting. When I figured out how to get ten hours of work done in eight, they simply tried to give me ten hours again. I was done with that.

    All these years later, five years after my father stopped working and two years after he passed away, I am still receiving these small commission payments from our health insurance carriers.

    They were my father’s commissions. Our agreement was that I would give him half, a deal we renegotiated and argued about more times than I can count. Too many fights, too many battles.

    Because of that experience, I am adamant that my kids will never work for me or with me. I can only work for them, so they can fire me anytime they no longer need me. That seems like the fairest way to protect the relationship.

    As time passes, the rose colored glasses grow even rosier. I remember the good times more than the arguments. It is a cautionary tale, but it was also my life, and it was good. There is far more to appreciate and be thankful for than there is to regret.

    We had big personalities, which meant strong opinions and strong fights. Now, with the perspective that time and death bring, I can see more clearly. My father might have understood my perspective, and I know I was not always right no matter how many times I retell the story in my own head. I was not wrong, but neither was he.

    If we could achieve perfect understanding, we could have perfect forgiveness. I know that truth intellectually, but it is hard to feel completely in this life.

    I cared deeply for my father and I loved him. I wanted to take care of him, and I did. In truth, I gave more than the half we agreed on in commissions to both my father and my mother. I was happy to do it. They were my parents and I loved them.

    Eventually I surpassed them, which is always the plan. Children are supposed to find their own way.

    But I still think back to those moments when things were good. When we would joke with each other and throw out lines from the movies. “Kibbits,” he would say to other people. Many of his expressions are etched into the ridges of my mind. They are part of my makeup now, even though I rarely say them aloud. Sometimes I say them quietly to myself and smile.

    The inner ghosts of the people who shaped us.

    I was proud to work with my father. I was impressed by him. He had gone through so many things and tried so many different businesses before finally finding insurance at around fifty five years old. His previous business had been hollowed out underneath him by his trust in the wrong people.

    That experience left its mark. The trust he struggled with after that was always a point of tension between us. I had never betrayed that trust, but I still felt the weight of it. It cut deeper than I ever admitted at the time.

    In the end, after all the arguments and the Greek word he loved to use, fouskaries, the nonsense and the noise, I find myself remembering the good days.

    The days when it was fun.

    When we were selling and laughing and shouting our lines at each other across the office.

    So in the end, all I really want to say is this.

    I miss you, Dad. I love you.

    That is what matters in the end.

    And I still smile when I think of you.

  • The Phantom Limb of Love

    The Phantom Limb of Love

    We are coming up on the anniversary of my mom’s passing, two years ago. It is less about the day itself and more about the slow remembering of her life as the date approaches. The weight grows a little heavier each day. The gravity of it becomes more present.

    I still miss her every day. There are moments when I forget she is gone. I will think of something and instinctively reach for my phone to call her and share it, only to remember a second later that I cannot.

    It is a strange feeling, like the phantom limb phenomenon. Except the missing piece is a large part of my heart, and sometimes my brain forgets to tell the rest of me that it is gone.

    Today I cashed in my Barnes and Noble rewards. Buying books with my mom was something special we shared growing up. Early on I was a terrible reader because of a hearing issue that had been missed. Later, when that was resolved and I committed to getting better, I fell in love with reading.

    My mother, as all good mothers do, fueled that fire.

    We would go to bookstores and pick out fantasy novels together. A father might say, “Why are you reading that nonsense?” But a mother knows better. My son was reading. Whatever he was reading was wonderful. She was proud of me.

    Those trips were usually part of a larger kind of day. The kind where we would run errands together, grab lunch, and she would buy me a small gift somewhere along the way. Simple days. Nothing extraordinary on the surface. Yet those memories remain etched deeply in my mind. I hold them now with a deep sense of gratitude.

    In the end we are still little children at heart. I can buy almost anything now, any material object I want. But none of it fills this space. The tears come from the heart and from a beautiful love remembered.

    Sometimes I think about the movie AI. The robot who just wanted one last perfect day with his mother. One day of being loved unconditionally by the only person who could give him that love. The quiet perfection of peace in a mother’s arms. The way she would look down at you with that expression of pure love.

    That joy.

    I think of the words of Jesus: so that you may have joy, and that your joy may be complete.

    Jesus promised that we would not be left alone. He said that when he left, he would send the Holy Spirit, described as the Comforter, the Advocate, and the Spirit of truth. That presence has always felt a little like a mother to me.

    All is not lost. Even though I am fully here in this world, I can also feel the almost imperceptible release of weight being removed from the scale of life. And yet I trust that death is not the end.

    I look forward to seeing her again someday.

    And to that embrace.

  • Dolly

    Dolly

    Aunt Lucy

    I feel compelled to write something for our family blog. I feel like I’ve been visited in my dreams by a spirit who asked me to jot down a thing or two. To let us know they made it safely and there is no need to worry. The history of the histories. The living memory of the people who shaped us, and who continue shaping us long after they are gone.

    Aunt Lucy was many things to many people. To my wife, she was a second mother and grandmother. To my mother-in-law, she was a second mom who listened and didn’t judge. She was an aunt by blood, but she became Aunt Lucy to all by the way she lived. Her title was not merely a fact of family structure, but something earned through years of love, admiration, and presence.

    The great ones share a similar mold. They are formed in love. Life subjects them to pressure, loss, and hardship. They pass through the crucible. They have every opportunity to harden, to close off, to become stone. But they do not. They remain soft at their center. They remain love.

    She was the mother of four children. Three daughters, Laura, Lisa, and Lorraine, and her favorite son, Robert. Near the end, I asked her, “So who is your favorite child?” Even medicated, she gave the answer only a true mother could give. She did not have a favorite child, because she had four. But she could have a favorite son.

    Aunt Lucy reminded me immediately of my own grandmother, my Yia Yia. She was someone who radiated love in ways both large and small. She would lean forward when you spoke, fully present, as if nothing else in the world mattered more than what you were saying. She chose to make you feel held.

    My grandparents died many years ago, and without discussion or ceremony, she filled that space for me. It was never spoken. It was simply who she was. People like Aunt Lucy do not announce themselves as pillars. They simply stand, and over time, everyone leans on them.

    She cared deeply for my children. She wanted to know everything. What they were doing. What excited them. She celebrated their lives as if their exploits were her own. Being around them brought her joy, and being around her gave them something they may not fully understand until much later. The quiet certainty of being loved without condition.

    She was the matriarch of her family. Even at the end, she was assigning roles, keeping order, maintaining the invisible architecture that holds a family together. She called my brother and me darling. She called the girls dolly. These were not just words. They were her words. They were her way of placing you safely within her world.

    I have vivid memories of our family vacations together, my family in law that simply became my family. We would rent houses in the Poconos or on Long Island for a week at a time. Mornings filled with quiet coffee and sunlight through unfamiliar windows, with an enlivening game of chess. Evenings filled with laughter, meals, a card game, and the simple comfort of shared presence. Those weeks now feel preserved, untouched by time.

    Watching her and Sal together was witnessing something rare. They were not just husband and wife. They were fully intertwined, as two souls who are married can strive to be. A kind of unity that only emerges after decades of shared experience, imperfectly perfect. It was beautiful to see. Something I hadn’t witnessed with my own grandparents, but something I was blessed to witness and strive for in my own life.

    They embodied the simple joy of being together. Being present. Greeting each sunrise as something new to experience side by side.

    Life was not easy for her. But life is not easy for anyone. We are all visited by loss. The more we love, the more loss visits us. It can make a person want to close their heart, to protect themselves from future pain.

    She never did.

    People like Aunt Lucy carry forward something ancient. A tone of voice. A way of caring. A standard for what family means. They become part of you without you realizing it. In the end, it’s amazing how someone you might describe as having a simpler life ends up having the most meaning and impact. Their influence moves quietly through generations.

    Just as with the death of my own parents, Christmas will now carry another absence. Another chair that will not be filled. Another voice that will not call out from across the room.

    Yet I feel peace knowing she is with the ones she loved who went before her. I imagine them together again, laughing, playing cards, resuming conversations that never truly ended. Making sure the dice are shaken in a cup.

    The casino in heaven just gained a fierce new player.

    And somewhere, she is calling someone darling.