Voices

I keep hearing Uncle Marvin's voice in my head. He and his brother Dick (and my dad, less so their brother Mark) have/had the deepest, most elegant radio-announcer voices (but with way more soul, humor, anger and power) you ever heard. I just can't stand that's there's only one such voice left in the world. Those voices were, to me, the rumblings of God himself. When we were kids and spending every weekend at Uncle Dick's beautiful mansion on the coast of Connecticut, my eleven cousins would be wilding around and I would be in the room with the men, literally sitting at their feet while they debated politics and threw affectionate insults at each other. Tempers rose easily. My Uncle Dick, the lawyer, thundered the loudest. Marvin was the best at curt dismissal, and my father, Carl, the most cuttingly funny. When they laughed, it was a roar.

That they took seriously what I had to say was the highest compliment a child could be paid.

I just feel so tired and like I can't concentrate. I can't imagine what a loser I'll be at church today. I could cry just thinking about how much energy it will take just to get through the opening words and call to celebration, let along my 20-minute sermon.

I have a headache already and I slept well and long.

Grief is the worst.