It is Raining in My Heart

After a wonderful spring break of the family Easter gathering, a trip to the beach, the amusement park and birthday celebrations for Ron and our friend and comrade Bill, the rain pours down, the wind chills and we have limited time to get ready for back to school, back to work, back to crazy busyness. 

That's when the words of this 19th century French poet Paul Verlaine come to my mind. 

(I studied French for 8 years of my life so forgive me if I sound pretentious.)

l pleure dans mon coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville

Literally, it translates to "it rains in the town as it rains in my heart."

The French verbs for crying - pleurer and raining - pleuvoir are so similar that they become one in the same. 

One week from today it will have been two years since the plane crash. The terrible reality of losing our brother, friend, son, father, life partner hits us like it did when we first got the news. 

For Vicki, it's the reality on a minute by minute basis, there is no forgetting. For my parents, it's the unnatural disaster of losing a child. For me, it's the near daily realization that Ned is not on some long trip or that it has just been a long time since we have talked. Sometimes there's this forgetting that occurs through dreaming. He visits me when I sleep and I wake up with the reality of him gone. Sometimes it is just going through life with that subconscious background knowledge that he is there for me to talk to and then the harsh slap in the face that his life here on Earth is over. 

It is raining in my heart just like it is raining outside, relentless gray, cold damp with no sun in sight. We miss you Ned. Time for a good cry.