An incandescent passage

Over seventy years ago two young people met and a flame ignited to be extinguished, decades later, only by their deaths.

There were similarities, there were differences. Both seem to add to the flame. Both had lost there Fathers at an early age. Both had a sister, a brother and had lost a sibling. My Mother lost her sister to a drunk driver while Max had a still-born brother. 

But they could have been from different planets culturally, he was a "Yankee" and her Mother was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy. Perhaps that dichotomy is what made their flame so intense, so raw, so incandescent. And, it did. There eleven of us as living proof. It was something that they, sadly, could not transfer. It was theirs and while they assuredly loved us, passing that on to us was beyond reality. They simply loved too hard. When Max died, years later, Mother began to slowly wither. There was nothing remaining. 

As kids, we were aware, but not able to communicate or articulate our "aloneness." So we developed the stoic demeanor of our Newfoundland ancestors. Stoic, yes. Quiet, no. We shouted to be heard, but never just talked and never listened. Bringing back something that never existed is not conceivable. That ship sailed. Years ago. 

The situation existed, but it was not intentional. It just was. Maybe even more-so as years pass. Cares? Concerns? Feelings? Perhaps in the past, now I only hope that each of us somehow got to experience that flame ourselves. A passion unexpected, unfathomable and never diminishing.