It has been a few weeks since the death of my father and like many others who have traveled this path; you walk slowly down a road that says for you this person has reached an end. It is an end, at least in a physical sense, that cannot be altered no matter how we attempt to shift our focus.

The other day I was helping my sister pack up things of Daddy’s that she wanted to keep, and the movie “Fried Green Tomatoes” came to mind. There are a number of things to like about that movie but the phrase that came to me was “It is possible for a heart to be broken, and keep right on beating.” This fits my sister at this point. She was the one who provided most of the care for Daddy and to a degree in all our minds catered to his wishes. I stand there watching her lovingly decide and have to ask myself: “How does life go on when doctor visits, time to take pills, special arrangements for bathing and all the adjustments that went on for years, suddenly come to an end? Yes, the heart is broken but truly does keep right on beating.

Major questions that now present themselves are: What to do with all those hours given over to checking on him? How is life now to be ordered once the light we all seemed to revolve around has gone out? Who would we share rounds of laughter with as we made fun of navigating life?

Despite the fact I focused on my sister, I realize now that all of us have had our hearts broken in different ways, but just as the narrator of the movie says “It just keeps right on beating.”