Notes from The Atlantic site on other works (from 2001)

Tonight I am not sure I can take much death...


There seems to be something that let's us have the strength to bear these things, death of a parent. Mine never leave me, really, and I find as I remember my mother or my father every day that they seem to rest a little bit more. They struggled a great deal, and they laughed a great deal, and they found a way in the world together.

Most of the conversations I had with my father towards the end of his life had in them some question about my mother. He asked of me the same thing, of where she was or had gone. He kept expecting her back, soon. This was something tangible for him, for he could not imagine, let alone comprehend, that she would be gone someway away from him. Apparently, she was really just at the neighbors. In fact, she was dead. I thought, she's gone to heaven and he knows something we don't know.

In other conversations, he spoke of his mother. He told about riding behind cars on skates in the streets of New York City as a boy. He asked for his brother. He wanted to hear about people in the movies, and surprisingly he talked of people who had been good to him. Someone had been good to him, and he remembered.

"Heap my love instead," is a good thing, and painful.

Peter