The family name on the large gray tombstone called to me as a loud silent reminder.  It was the sight of the family name, looming before me, which plunged my heart into painful sorrow that day, and brought finality to their lives on earth.  As I stood at the threshold of letting go, I thought:  How do I let go of my parents?  Abruptly my role as daughter came to its end there in Mount Calvary Cemetery.  Both my parents were gone, and everything immediately became memory, with their lives summed up quickly.  In the shadow of our family name my mother was put to rest with my father.

Their life had been a dance, through the Roaring ‘20’s and The Great Depression, World War II, Korean Conflict, Viet Nam, the turbulent ‘50’s and ‘70’s, and the twilight of the ‘80’s, when the music slowed down.  They had danced through births, baptisms, child raising, holidays, Vatican II, sacraments, relationships and deaths.  Their dance included celebration as well as desperation, successes and failures, wonderful times and bad.  Good health and sickness, better and worse…. on they had danced…. through apologies and reconciliations.  There had been rocky times.  Before she died, my Mom told me their best years had been the last 15 years of their marriage.  During it all they were committed until death.

©Pat Montesano 2003 All Rights Reserved.