Today is our daughter’s birthday and it aches to be far away.  I want her here, but she is happy there.  I wonder if I want to be there.  How difficult it is to live in this century of independence, not being close to the ones you love.  How difficult it is to live in this century of independence, so often not even acknowledging the constant missing.  How difficult it is to live in this century of independence, feeling the skies mirroring my mood.

It was gray and, some would say, gloomy, but I did not feel exactly gloomy.  I am happy that she is happy there, and I am happy that I am mostly happy here. Perhaps it is melancholy that I feel, for today being here lost its sunshine glow.  The deepest yearning I feel is for the happiness of my children.  I spoke on the phone with each of them today, but that is not holding them, not touching them, not looking into their eyes.  We can’t all want the same things, or we’d all be in the same place.  Time is so everything doesn’t happen all at once; space is so everything doesn’t happen all in the same place.  And still the feelings are overwhelming and universal.  Parents ache.