Rules for Visiting

by Jessica Francis Kane

Midway through my fortieth year, I reached a point where the balance of the past and all it contained seemed to outweigh the future, my mind so full of things said and not said, done and undone, I no longer understood how to move forward. I was tipped backward and wobbly, my balance was off, and this made sense to me. A life seemed so long, I couldn’t see how anyone proceeded under the accumulated weight of it.

I get this!

while I have wondered what it is fair to ask of loved ones. Can we ask them to take care of themselves for our sake, because we love them, or is that an inherently selfish request?

We had happy times, though our happiness was always a little desperate because it was never an adequate fix for whatever was making her sad.

That is how grief infects families and turns some of us into detectives. The first grief was my mother’s; I inherited it.

of us into detectives. The first grief was my mother’...

Just before the picture, the wind blew a strand of Rose’s long hair so that it wrapped over my shoulder, and I thought maybe that was the sign I’d been waiting for. Two people, side by side, looking straight ahead. I think C. S. Lewis was onto something. We don’t have music to reveal the direction of our lives, of course, but if we did, I’m pretty sure mine would have soared just then.