I talked to Eleanor, my sister, tonight. She is retiring from her job as an elementary school teacher. She is a wise woman – she knows at age 58 that she can no longer give this sort of job her all. We talked at length about her friends, one of whom is not in great shape, had a stroke, is soon heading back to Canada to live.

I so wish that she was interested in my life and what I have to say. Maybe, just maybe, it isn’t all that important. And being her ear is a really good thing. We are all we have left in our family with the exception of our cousins. Hey wait, this is not what we bought into when we signed the contract before being born. There must have been some omissions, things that the powers that be deemed unimportant,

having to care for family members and their subsequent deaths included.

These are now the most important things I would now tell Eleanor. I wish, more than anything, when our mother was dying, that I had taken her hand in mine. Instead, I just stood there, in a state of shock. It was like I was what I’d been most of her life, a mere spectator. After she died, I put a pair of socks on her feet and wished her happy and safe travels.

I didn’t cry because I had to be strong for Eleanor. I sensed that if I fell apart that she would have fallen apart. I recall that it was raining pretty hard on the way back to her place.

After, awhile at her place, I just sat around like a bump on a log. I recall that I went for long walks – went to the Woodstock area and watched Little League games in the evenings. I felt very much alone and very sad at this point in time.

I was very glad to get home – I was gone a lot longer than I thought I would be. But I could not leave earlier, knowing that El would have been alone if I had not stayed.

I do not know why there was so little love between my mother and me. I do know that I was unable to overlook her self-neglect. El was not, and was able to see into the depths of her soul, which is something that I learned from her how to do in my mother’s final days. I was not able to see into the depth of my Uncle Bob’s soul, although now I am better able to do this. Come to think of it, he is the only one who is still alive. There were three Guinan sisters and one brother. How strange it must feel, to have seen the passing of your mother and father and two sisters.

I don’t understand why everyone we care about dies, this makes no sense to me. Too bad we can’t stop reproducing and keep everyone here. Alas, I had no say in how the system was set up.

Next: 152. 6/3/17: Home Again