Mending

One of the things I tend to do when I write is rant and rave about the oddities here at The Manor, perhaps sometimes giving the impression that life is particularly odd or difficult here. It is odd, sometimes difficult, but there are many moments when I think to myself that life is rather beautiful here. This morning my mom, brother and I happened upon each other on the patio; I was eating my breakfast, my mom drinking her coffee and my brother making preparations to return home to Boulder. None of us sought the other out, rather we all ended up there to enjoy the morning sun under the umbrella before getting on with our business. In past summers this has been a daily routine from early June, but this year has been uncommonly cold and morning meals have been mostly inside.

The meal seemed like any other and for a few minutes I took little notice of either my mom or brother, this is something of a defense mechanism for me since living with my mom and brother in the same vicinity is often a volatile pursuit. With my brother it is a matter of his bi-polar issues, I never know exactly who it is I will be meeting at the table -his jolly side or the sad side. Over the weekend I had come in to contact with both extremes and the many facets in between and this morning I was rather tentative, waiting to see who would reveal themselves. It turned out my brother was in a hopeful frame of mind this morning, a contagious energy my mother quickly adopted and one that even spread on to me. Soon we were all three laughing about nothing in particular but with an ease of utter peace that I caught myself wondering just what the hell was happening. It wasn’t an observation I voiced to the other two, but a warmth I absorbed. It wasn’t until later that I realized those few minutes at the patio table were the first time I felt the trio of us to be a family in the three years since my father died. We weren’t three broken people grieving for the center that once held us together. There were no resentments over who got what or where allegiances were set. It was just us; a family.