#76 Stuck

I’m a little stuck for inspiration today. There are many, many good Eric stories left, but none that seem to want to add up to a coherent post at the moment. Summer was a time when Eric and I were mostly apart. We went to day camps where we were segregated by age and later sleep away camps where we were segregated by gender and age. Still later we went to altogether different sleep away camps. From the one summer I remember us being at the same sleep away camp, I can remember mostly being the intrusive older sister that he didn’t want around. I can recall standing on the grass in front of his bunk yelling to him and his fellow campers that their epidermis was showing—a joke I think I learned from my father.

Summer was for freedom and fun and was always over too soon. It still is, even though I am now an adult and have to work all summer long. Sort of. It’s still a time of vacations and playing with my kids. It’s still magical, although less so this summer. Less magical because Eric will not get to go to the pool or the ocean again. Eric will not know that yesterday my 3 year old learned to really swim. Eric will not have cocktails on my parents’ deck overlooking the marsh again. Eric will not make any more long road trips crisscrossing the country to visit us and all of his friends.

There is an under current of loss in everything I do, in everything my family does. Silently we acknowledge what is missing, and we all know the others are doing it too. Fireworks, Italian Ices, barbecuing or even having hot chocolate outside in 90 degree heat (something only he would ever want to do) are all things he will never experience again.

So my writer’s block is not because I’m forgetting, not because I’m letting go. Because I’m not. I can’t and I won’t. It just is.