In Memory of Brian

I wanted to make meatball sandwiches tonight. Meatball sandwiches, the food of death. Oh, I know most people consider ham to be the food of death. Publish an obituary, and within days, hours even, the house is so filled to the cusp with ham that the wolf would be in a veritable coma. In our house, meatball subs are the food of death. That night, hazy August heat flickering, meatball sandwiches fill my too round belly. Her birth is only weeks away. We walk,waddle really, to the lake to taste the kiss of summer air. Winter comes too soon to Cleveland, so we suck delight from the heavy airless night. It is later, after dinner and walk and evening melts, that the phone rings. My husband runs screaming into the now black night….air not thick enough to stifle his cries, beating the ground with head and limbs and tears. His screams are swallowed whole by the humid embrace of earth. His brother, too sad and tormented for this world, has been found motionless and grey. The stars close in, the moon descends to earth, as does the brother in a few short days. So tonight, no meatball sandwiches, no brother, only the grey of winter punctuated by the laughter of her, of the now six year old that filled my belly so many nights ago.