What I Didn’t Get to Say
A Covid-19 Memorial
Car, Plane, Plane, Bus, Car — a 12 hour trip
I go to bury my Aunt Rosie. Except not, her interment had already been done months before, and the stone carved with the date of 2020.
My siblings and cousins came from across the country to celebrate the life of the last of our parent’s generation. Not the 96-year-old one who got Covid, but the Rosie we recall. Covid took her body, though she had gone elsewhere already. Yet all of us had visited her long after our own parents had gone.
A still grieving daughter and grandchild could not bear to feel the connections and hear the stories of our Rosie. They needed to hold their Rose tight to the chest. We listened to their hearts express the loss they still feel.
What I didn’t get to say on that day, yet want someone to know
My aunt was a working girl when girls didn’t work. Rosie the Riveter had nothing on my Rosie. She was a smooth operator, literally working for that “new fangled” phone company, “Ma Bell” for years.
Uncle Tommy’s heart beat. They could have no children, no one ever said why. Yet,they brought home two beautiful babies one-by-one. A boy and a girl, ingredients for the perfect family. It…
