DelBloggolo: AFTER THE LIGHTS GO DOWN

Thursday, April 09, 2015

AFTER THE LIGHTS GO DOWN

Three lunatics approach their Asylum doctor with a request for a weekend pass to the local city. "That's impossible says the doctor. You're all nuts. You'll get lost and never come back." But, the lunatics wouldn't relent until finally, exasperated, and the doctor says "OK! If you can answer a simple question I'll sign the pass." He turns to the first lunatic and says "What's three times three?" The lunatic starts counting on his fingers "3, 7, 19, 38? Is it 128?" The doctor shakes his head and turns to the next lunatic: "What's three times three?" The lunatic immediately shouts "WEDNESDAY!" The doctor, beginning to get disgusted turns to the last lunatic: "What's three times three?" The lunatic thinks for a moment and then asks for a pencil and a piece of paper. That provided, he writes for some time furiously, and finally looks up and says "Nine." The doctor is amazed, but true to his word he begins filling out the pass. As he's writing he says, "This is incredible, you've always been thoroughly insane. How'd you do it?" The lunatic responds, "Oh, it was easy I divided 128 by Wednesday!"

This is the first Easter that I spent without my mother. When she died in June of last year, everything died. All the traditions are now gone there are no more!

It seems that long ago, when Dad was alive and we as a family spent our time together, life was reassuring. We always had the holidays to be together, laugh and enjoy both company and food. Every year was assured a Christmas Eve dinner, cooked by Mom, a Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. Some years long ago, Palm Sunday was treated as much as a holiday as Easter was.

A trip to cemeteries, churches and anticipation of spending a holiday with family was all part of the makeup of a holiday. There were years where everyone dressed up with his/her Sunday best so to speak.

But the glue that held these festive occasions are now gone. People go on with their own agendas and so be it, we free ourselves for new traditions and better times to come. But I can’t help but feel a little depression this year, now that we buried Mom and the traditions. My wife is Irish: she doesn’t care about Easter meat pies and ricotta pies that the Italian tradition demands. My kids have no idea about such things, only me. In a way it says that I’m an orphan, an old one, but an orphan none-the-less.

I’m sure that everyone feels this way. Tradition is past and new traditions are needed to accommodate new lives and ways of living. We can’t live in the past, for death insures that. But memories are the storehouses of traditions long gone, and it is there we should keep them alive, because after the lights go down, there is nothing else.