Pancakes

Today marks six months since Scott died, but it feels like it's been much, much longer. Clark and I are having pancakes this morning, in memory of the many lazy mornings making and eating pancakes at Delafield - sometimes with dozens of friends, sometimes just Scott and I and an hours-long game of Scrabble.

I was studying in the library yesterday when I realized that it's been almost exactly a year since we learned that the cancer had spread to his lungs. That day feels more immediate somehow than the day he died. I remember receiving the news from his oncologist, the word "incurable." We went out for coffee - it was bitter - and for a walk through Golden Gate Park. Certain parts of our route that day still echo for me with a memory of the weight in my limbs, the feeling that the ground had dropped out from under us.

Yesterday as I was leaving the library for lunch, I saw someone who looked just like Scott, sitting where Scott would always meet me for lunch dates. I had to look again, to convince myself it wasn't really him. It was crushing, enough to make me stop studying for the day and find a friend to help shoulder the burden. I got to talk and cry, and I got exercise and sunshine and a change of scenery, a sense of being brought back to the present. Good medicine.

Scott's spirit is strong here this morning. Truly his father's son, Clark asked for rooster sauce on his pancakes.