This weekend felt nice and long and a little bittersweet. The air was frigid on Friday evening, leaving Halloween feeling more like a trek into the windy winter cold than a festive neighborhood celebration. Neighbors with rosy cheeks and noses huddled in front of mini bonfires in their yards and pulled blankets closer around their shoulders while handing out candy — trick-or-treaters were sparse and frankly no one seemed to mind.

On Saturday I took down all the skeletons, ghosts, and tombstones, the giant spider and the fake cobwebs. I packed away the gruesome decorations for next year and Andrew and the boys raked all the leaves into the street for the bulk leaf collection trucks to come suck up into their giant vacuum trucks; some of Emil’s very favorite window-watching happens during this time of year.

We had plenty of fun. Saturday evening, Andrew and I went out to dinner with friends, hoping for a bite at the ever-popular Peacemaker Lobster & Crab Co. (below), but after learning that there was a 3-hour wait, we moved on to the Sidney Street Cafe just down the street, drinking at the bar slowly and deliberately until a table opened up there. It was sooooooo good. We were adventurous and tried for the first time sweetbreads (ugh… pancreas. Pancreas. UGH!!!) which I almost gagged over. Honestly, I’m an adventurous, open-minded eater, but I couldn’t do it. Turns out organ meat freaks me out. 

We had a wonderful time laughing and sharing stories with our people. Good friends are so refreshing!

On Sunday, Milo and I went out for a special coffee date, just the two of us. We sat there for nearly an hour just talking. He is such a smart, easy kid to talk to. And I’m not just saying that because I’m his mama, really! I tried to just sit there and really listen, refraining from jumping in or adding my own commentary. Sitting back, giving him my full attention and letting him take center stage was such a great thing. He has so many ideas, so many opinions and so many theories on things (especially scientific, but also social), that listening to him is actually enlightening for me. Seven is the best age, really. But I think that of every age lately. I’m just so, so in love with my boys, you know?

This weekend was the anniversary of my father’s death. It hits me gently now every year that goes by, every year that I realize no longer what I’m missing, but what he’s missing. Meeting my husband, his son-in-law, his grandsons. Talking to them and learning about them, seeing himself in them: that Milo is growing longer and leaner, like he was. Like Milo’s fiery temper and strong sense of justice. Like Oliver’s artistic streak. Like Emil’s silliness at this age. I was twelve when he passed away, and each year my boys grow older, I think about how they would handle a death like that — the soul-quaking, earth-shattering realness of it, the way it changes everything, absolutely everything: the way a child views mortality, his place in the world, his feeling of security, and his appreciation of the small beauty in everyday life through understanding its fragility. It has had these effects on me. Sometimes I will be trudging along with life and something completely random — the song of a cardinal, the change in wind, the beauty of the sky in the fall — will fill me with nostalgia. Something in my throat catches and suddenly he is there with me. I look in the mirror and see him more and more. I have his face in the feminine form — the dimples that now, as I age, show as long lines in my cheeks even when I am not smiling. The same hairline and eyebrows. And yes, that same fiery temper. Sigh. The good and the bad, I’ll take it all. I miss him, and he is with me.