It’s a word that came to me years ago to express the total and complete absence of a thing when it is gone. It can be a person, an animal, or even a beloved tree. A dear friend who moved away. Even a place that you had to leave behind.

There was a lot of gone-ness for us this past year. And you think you have moved on. Then you see that the engraver has returned to add Mother’s death-date to the grave marker she and Daddy now share and you cry for what you hope will be one last time.

Or the vet’s office calls and says you can come pick up the ashes.

You want to let go and you want to hold on. When you no longer feel that terrible ache in your solar plexus, or deliberately think of something sweet and precious that makes you cry, then they are really gone. So you hang on.

Being old, I know that, eventually, you no longer feel that heart-breaking pang. I no longer cry when I think of Mama Harrison, or my beautiful German Shepherd Alice, or the redwood trees I left behind.

Gone-ness.