Changes

by practicalspactical

I have a son. I have a wife. I have a house. My father is dead. My brother has moved to California. My sister’s life is much as it was, with her husband and her two beautiful daughters.

A year ago. A year ago. He sat at the head of our Passover Seder, he said “Next Year in Jerusalem.” On Good Friday, he had a seizure, and by Sunday, he was coming back, but even then, the decline began, the decline.

We count the Omer for 49 days, from the second day of Passover until Shavuot. He died on Sivan 4, just before sunset, on the 48th day of the Omer.

I count the Omer now. For him, and for me. For my son? I don’t know. For my wife? She has no love or interest in it. I am so deeply offended by that. I am angry with her. So angry with her.

She says we have to stop blaming each other. Who’s blaming anybody?

I blame her for changing the plan. I blame her for choosing herself over me. I blame her for telling me I wasn’t good enough. For being angry at me that I got laid low by the COVID vaccine and couldn’t help her.

I want to leave her. Leave her. Leave the house. Leave my son? I’ll see him, I’m sure. I don’t want to fight with her, but she cannot be reasoned with. Can not be talked to. She makes me angry and sad and she makes me feel unloved.

Today is the second day of the Omer. Discipline in Lovingkindness. The decline. The decline.

A dark mirror? Is this foolish life I seized for myself simply a dark mirror, a dark parody of His? His story repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.

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