The last year has been foundation-shaking for me. I went from two parents to zero in less than seven months and I’m trying to figure out exactly how life works now. Soon after the second parent died, my region was plunged into a miserable heat wave that lasted more than a week and made it hard to do anything other than sit inside and feel bad and wonder if this is just what summers are like now, if this is our new climate, and here I am, facing it parentless.
But the heat wave went away and the other evening it rained. I sploshed barefoot in the temporary stream down the middle of the alley, in the rain and the sun, and looked for a rainbow.
I realize that eventually finding yourself with zero parents is the correct order of things. But how on earth do people do it? Because, so far, I don’t like it.
Photo: Helen Fields, obviously
