Impermanence

Hello friends, The photo here is of my brother George, about age 10 or 11, in the mid-1940s with our father Gino. He died in 2019 at age 82. It is natural in many families to want things to continue on, to hope for deeper understanding, even to get better in some way. However when cancer or other illness strikes at this idea, the impermanence of life becomes a fact impossible to ignore. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote that “what makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.” While I still think about brother George and our differing paths, I am at peace with his memory. Best, Gene

Coda

Move on, dear brother, move on.
Your quick departing left me very sad,
yet grateful for our years together.

Our life in Oakland was ups and downs:
Gino’s hard work and fury.
Katie’s love-filled care and self-pity.

We were lucky for our wider family
across the street: nonna, nonno, barba Johnny,
who grew vegetables for us in the Depression

and provided refuge when tensions rose
at home. We could sit with nonna around
her rough kitchen table and wood-burning stove,

as she read the Italian paper and criticized pols.
Pa “did” sixth grade near Lucca and learned pain
in the Great War transferring overt angers to you,

hidden ones to me: a hard gap to bridge.
Nuns and priests taught pre-Vatican II ways
until Jesuits widened the framework.

We were not close friends as years wore on,
but you showed abiding help to your children.
We couldn’t talk politics, but much else remained.

You were successful as lawyer-banker, but your
marriage failed. Sad that you convinced yourself
it couldn’t be otherwise when others came near.

For all our differences we ended up agnostics:
I as a believing unbeliever, you
with another vision beyond my telling.

I respect your journey and love of family.
So move on, dear brother, move on.
May we meet again on distant shores.