Absence

I caught myself today looking for Angie's car when Big One and I got back from the grocery store. I knew that her car wouldn't be there, because there is no way that any of the siblings would drive the car over for fear that my children see it or that our neighbour Carmela see it. Carmela got Angie her first job in the cafeteria at the university here, and then they moved together to the seminary to manage the kitchen there. Carmela can't actually see that well and last night she fell down her front steps, but ended up with only a bruised hip. A good thing it was only a bruise, because on Sunday afternoon we're heading over to the Italian Canadian Club to celebrate her 89th birthday.

Zia Lucia always said that she felt sorry for Angie, but I don't think that's the right sentiment. Angie was a big girl and a bigger woman, but she wasn't unhappy and I don't think she needed anyone to feel sorry for her. Lucia felt sorry for her because Angie remained unmarried, but she was busy with the family and with a few friends, she loved having the kids right next door to the family house where she often visited.

When we miss something or someone, it is the actual presence or promise of presence that we miss. When we expect to see something and it isn't there, we "miss" it. When we first moved here from the east coast, my brain missed the visual interruption of the ocean, something I saw every day but to which I felt no emotional connection. Thus I "missed" it because my brain expected to see it, but not because I had any great desire to see it. Completely different this time though, where not seeing Angie's car made me sad and I obviously had an emotional response to the situation. It's like BF1 said, that sometimes she still looks for her dad; my mother's labrador continued to look for my stepfather after he died; Hub keeps hearing Angie's voice in his head.

Some things we don't realize we miss until they are back in our lives. Whenever I go out west I remember that the sky goes on forever, and that the earth and sky are supposed to meet at the horizon. One should be able to see the sky and the weather it's bringing from two or three hours away; one should be able to see the lights from a city long before one is anywhere near it, if driving along the highway at night. When I see all this, when I remember that my vista should be uninterrupted, then I realize that I've missed it. Your thoughts stretch further when you can see forever.

People who've been absent and then later reappear in your life are also greatly missed, until you catch up with everything and assume an everyday rapport. Even though BF2 is living elsewhere, we spent so much time catching up the 10 years that I missed him terribly at first. Things are easier now, we've managed a steady rhythm of communication. Similarly with BF1 and even with FFS, both of whom I miss but with both, steady communication smooths that out. When I talk to any of these people I am right with them, even though they are all at least a two hour plane ride away from here. I miss them but I am with them quite often.

The absence is something to get used to; you miss what you expect to see and then you have an emotional or a physical or an analytical response to it. Your brain tricks you and you see things that aren't there because you want to see them so badly .... or in turn, you see something or someone you don't want to see. This happened when I kept seeing my ex-husband after I'd left him: I saw him on the street and on campus even though when I got close to the people I was mistaking him for, there was no resemblance at all.

It's a long process, rearranging our minds to include the idea that someone isn't there any more.