today is the day my mother, just 35, lost her husband, the only man she would ever love.
today is the day my mother cried on her father's shoulder, not knowing that in three weeks he too would be dead.
today is the day my mother lost her mother, twenty years later.
today is the day my mother, unquestioning Catholic, celebrates her feast day, Patricia to Patrick, living to dead.
Grief unspoken destroys us. Grief unspoken welcomes disease, turmoil, violence, and chaos. Grief unspoken consumes the family. Grief unspoken has taken my mother from me.
today is the day I celebrate loss.
