IN THE YEAR OF THE FALLING LEAVES (Reflections)

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He is gone. I wish I could explain my lack of writing to my computer. I would bemoan my luck with technology. Yes; it got to the point where I.E. would no longer even open a basic search engine. My Bookmarks were all lost. But, that's for another blog. In the scope of things....
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Dad did not make it. I've found myself shut off and detached, yet as I type this, I'm starting to cry. I find that writing is my outlet for my emotions as is that perfect line in a book or poem. I've avoided people since it happened, as I don't want to feel it. But, I am certainly not an idiot. Refer to some law of physics if you must, but energy cannot be held back. I know I'm the proverbial body of water building up behind the dam.
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Perhaps you've read some of my blogs about my Dad. I always knew that he was proud of me. He was a person who worked too hard all his life. There were so many things that he meant to tell me. He had started to share some of the stories. I've written about my Grandparents during the war and how they had a Jewish family stay with them for a year and a half. The fact that Dad didn't even see that this was anything to be proud of speaks volumes about him. Likewise, I have written that a Russian Prisoner of War was lodged with them at the same time and had to be taken away because he wasn't treated harshly enough. That decency---the very humanness displayed by my Grandparents, was something Dad inherited. He had friends from all walks of life. There were street people he would recognize, and they him. Their talks were always real and just two men, eye to eye.
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As a kid I was so proud of my Dad the day he came home and told me he had actually found something akin to buried treasure. He'd been working in an attic one day, when he found a small trunk hidden behind old insulation bats in the wall. Inside were old coins, gold pieces and other goodies. Dad brought it down to the owner. It turned out that the man's father had been a collector who'd died, and nobody had known where these items had vanished. Far too many people would have taken it and run. I am thankful for his guidance. I've found purses since then, one containing the passport and wallet of a Japanese tourist about to board her bus. The joy and relief on the faces of people in such circumstances is something that could never be topped. I feel for people who didn't have elders in their childhood to pass on these messages.
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After we returned from Europe, we certainly weren't rich in the monetary sense. It had cost everything. My mother actually had to use an old ringer washing machine as we could afford nothing else. So many of my things were second hand or homemade. There were no trips to Disneyland. But I certainly value things now. I know that the person beneath the clothing, or the extra weight, or whatever else it is that our society tells us matters, is the important thing. I would never have been one of those kids who bullied another, thanks to the values given to me.
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Dad had not felt well, but things went bad very fast, which is the way these things tend to go.
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I've given it some thought, and I am going to share some of my experiences and writings. Perhaps somebody who lost a loved one might stumble upon this blog. Later this week I shall include some of the passages from those long months. I know that my writing in ICU earned me some curious looks, but that and C.E. Lewis' edition of "Poems Worth Knowing" helped me deal with the despair of those flashing red alarms on what Mom called the machine.
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Why "The Year of the Falling Leaves?" As I stood in various hospital rooms, I would look out the window and watch them fall.
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I have to work tonight, so despite the fact that I'm happy to have solved many of my computer issues (a new browser and elimination of my old Security Provider for one that doesn't freeze up my screen with constant scans), I need to sleep. I hope.