I meant to only take a week off, but one turned into two, turned into three.

This is a hard time of year.

My aunt Patty, my mother’s oldest sister, passed away in mid-May. Please read about her extraordinary life.

We are also in the week counting down to the second anniversary of my father’s death. Two years ago, on May 25, 2024, my family gathered for a slightly belated celebration of my mom’s birthday and Mother’s Day. It was a meandering late spring day. We ate brunch at the house. My sister had cooked bacon earlier that morning and we couldn’t figure out why so little of it was left by the time brunch began, until it became clear that eight people sneaking a piece or two here and there adds up. We gathered around the ten-week old baby, my niece, on a blanket on the living room floor. We played catch with the baseball in the front yard. Someone’s throw accidentally crashed square into one of the hummingbird feeders hanging from the front porch awning, and it exploded spectacularly in glass and sugar water. My partner was visiting for the first time. My dad told him stories about wiring this house when we were building it 30 years earlier. We had cake and ice cream and sang to my mom. We stayed up late watching the Phillies defeat the Rockies. My partner told my dad he should watch Moneyball. They both talked about how much they loved The Holdovers.

Early the next morning, my dad had a stroke and was rushed to Reading hospital, where he stayed for eleven days until his death on June 5.

Some of the images from those eleven days: Driving back and forth from South Coventry to Reading. The turnpike lined with thick green trees. The heat wave. Watching Hacks in the air-conditioned basement guest bed of the Airbnb my sister rented so we could all be closer to the hospital. Holding my dad’s right hand, the one he could still feel and move, and reading to him from his just-arrived copy of Pennsylvania magazine. The newest issue had an article about the origin of the pretzel. The hospital cafeteria. Ordering takeout and watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The taco and Thai joints of West Reading. The coffee shop with Taylor Swift-themed lattes. The visits from aunts and uncles and my dad’s best friend on his last day. The kindness of the nurses. Singing to him with my mom, sister and brother in his final hours.

Packing up the rental house the morning after he died and driving away like we never wanted to see those streets again. I was alone in the Chrysler Pacifica my dad used to drive, listening to his favorite Sirius station, Little Steven’s Underground Garage. The Byrds cover of “My Back Pages” came on as I drove through the farmlands of Morgantown. "Ah, but I was so much older then / I’m younger than that now”