My father died on Aug. 18, 2005 after two weeks in the hospital. Although it was a brief illness, my family went through considerable grief thinking he was going to heal, then awaiting his recovery from a post-operative coma from which he never recovered. That was a very stressful time for my family which still has not healed totally.

My mother died this past Thursday, Nov. 16 after an illness which basically began last Spring. She also had an operation in early September, and again we initially thought she was going to recover. The past three months have been an emotional roller coaster for the entire family as she worsened, suffered incredible pain, was told she was healing, but continued to deteriorate physically until she spent the past week in a hospice basically in a coma.

Tonight my family is gathering for mutual support and solace, since tomorrow is the viewing and Monday is the funeral. All our family and friends will gather these two days, but we all wish it could have been for a better reason than to bury perhaps the finest, more caring person all of us have ever known in our lives.

I was playing guitar earlier today and instinctively I drifted toward Pink Floyd, especially “Comfortably Numb” and “Wish You Were Here,” whose lyrics, with a bit of adaptation, seemed particularly fitting right now for those of us who knew my mother.