Hearts of Stone

4AM thoughts.

I was watching the Zoom of my mom's funeral. That's not so much a thought as a fact but just hear me out. I was watching and also looking at the surrounding graves. I noticed on a stone a heart made of rocks.

"Weird," I thought. "I know my kids (and nieces and nephews) had made a heart of stones on the tombstone after my dad passed -- is that his stone? Wouldn't they have moved the stone to put mom in?" Befuddled I was. That comes after a-fuddled and then there is c-fuddled. But I'm the middle child, so b-fuddled it is.

Then I saw that the name on the stone was not my dad's. "Even weirder," thought I. "I'm pretty sure I remember my dad's name, and upon last visit, there were no other hearts made from stones on other graves." My fuddlement jumped exponentially (which, literally means "like Montreal"). Next, the camera panned back and I saw my dad's stone which had, indeed been removed. It was standing up, slouching really, on the side, leaning against a wall, waiting to be acknowledged, like me at a party.

Initially, I was annoyed.

The fact that "I" is my brother's initial makes that sentence funny. To me. At 4AM. After watching a funeral.

Anyhoo, I was miffed you might say. The heart thing was a Rosen bit! I have the pictures to prove it. How dare someone else co-opt our show of stone-play based affection!

But then I played it out.

Maybe someone came by and saw the heart on my dad's tomb stone. Maybe that person was inspired to demonstrate love and care in similar fashion. Maybe, the love that that person felt hadn't known how to be expressed and maybe, just maybe, it was the act of people in my family, driven by and inspired by my parents and their love, which gave someone else the idea to show how he or she felt. Maybe, my parents are still helping increase love in the world and helping people show that they care. And that's not something to be annoyed, miffed, or even befuddled by.

That's something to be proud of.