I hate crowds.  I don't do the Fourth of July on the Esplanade in Boston.  I don't go to the Saint Patrick's Day Parade in South Boston.  I don't do First Night.  And yet, I could not stay away from the Women's March which gathered on Boston Common yesterday.  They had planned for a crowd of 20,000.  The estimated attendance was somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000.  We couldn't move.  We stood for hours listening to the speakers and then trying to get out of the crowd and onto the streets to march.  I never actually did "march", but I heard every speech.  I saw nothing because if I were any shorter my hair would smell like feet (I stole that line, but it's a good one).

So there I was looking at a lot of pink hats and a lot of creative signs and a lot of extraordinarily pleasant people, largely female, but there was a fair representation of men and some children there, too.  There were many rainbow flags.  There were Muslim women in full dress.  There were immigrants, with and without papers.  Everyone showed up.  And the mood was not at all what I expected.

My reluctance to participate initially was largely due to my abhorrence of what large crowds have been known to descend into.  Violence terrifies me whether it's directed at me or not.  I thought the crowd might be looking for Trump's blood.  I thought there would be angry, shouting people shaking fists and turning red in the face.  Well, Trump was certainly unpopular with the crowd, but most of them weren't wishing him any physical harm.  What they made loud and clear was that they would not let him take away rights, or mistreat minorities, or take away healthcare coverage, or turn this country into a sea of hate without a fight.

But it was women.  We do things differently. People were offering total strangers snacks.  We were singing and laughing and talking to total strangers as though we had arrived together by plan.  My favorite sign was "Kind is the new sexy."  Do not mistake me.  We were all dead serious and joyful in a strange way.  We looked around and saw that we have power.  Everyone was astounded by the turnout, by the tone, and by the dedication to keeping America civilized.
There was not one arrest.  The Police Commissioner issued a press release thanking the crowd for their behavior.  

The marches in other cities, including the one my son was attending in Washington,
D.C., were no surprise.  When I later saw the accounts of supportive gatherings all around the world, however, I was moved to tears.   And for the first time in a very long time I felt hope.  And power.  And the world will be very surprised at what the power of women united can do.

50 years ago today my childhood ended at 6:30 in the morning when the doorbell rang.  My brother, Wayne, 22 years old and eight months back from Viet Nam, had died in a car crash going back to his base in Louisiana.  Nothing has been the same since.

You'd think that after 50 years I might have mastered the art of handling this information, that it would be an old scar never thought about.  You'd be wrong.  I called a priest friend in Wales this morning to ask him to remember Wayne in his prayers today.  My voice broke and the old pain surged up like a giant Jersey Shore wave that knocked me over and left me sputtering.  

Wayne would be 72, which I cannot picture at all.  Would he be gray?  Bald?  Would he be married and have kids?  What would life be like to still have a big brother as I approach 65?  It's the missing tooth that you forever seek with your tongue.  You poke and prod and constantly seek out that space, and although it has become part of who you are, it's never totally accepted, never comfortable.

There have been a great many deaths of people I've loved, and still love, since then.  Family and friends (who have been more "Family By Choice" or "FBC" as I call them).  I've gone through the stages of shock and the physical heaviness that grief brings, wearing it like a coat of lead.  I've gone through the guilt of having happy days without them.  I've learned that learning how to have happy days is exactly what we're supposed to do.  Still every now and then a song, a smell, a date on the calendar, will rip off the old scab and set the wound bleeding again.  And that's OK.  That means these people are still with me, still in my heart, still matter, are still loved.  

I guess I don't want to stop hurting.  I can't, won't and don't want to forget any of them and how they have been threads in the tapestry that is my life.  And if there are bare patches where these threads are missing, I guess that gives me an opportunity to glimpse what is on the other side.

Rest in peace, Wayne, but more than that, rest in joy.  Until we meet up again.