Was catching up on Podcastle back episodes on my walk yesterday - how I loved this story! Like the adult characters, I'm in my 50's and I've experienced a major loss within the last year (Dad, 91 - miss you, Old Man). I don't think I can sum up the inner/emotional journey I've been on since he died, but this story really captures a piece of it that I haven't been able to articulate for myself until now. It's not just the loss, it's the shift my world has made since then, the change in family dynamics, the change in the way I view my own life story, the reviewing of what I'm doing with my life, the weight of other inevitable lifetime changes and losses. There was something very healing for me about how the author sneaks up on acknowledgment and acceptance of the substance and weight of years of life experience, how he makes it more than just the recent tragedy and the minutiae of adult miserableness (mortgage payments and sexual frustration) - like those scores of happy endings (including the double-entendre that is not getting past my stinking adult). I loved the weight and substance the author gave to all those beloved childhood stories, making them more tangible than imaginary... but I especially loved "we aren't meant to hoard them. We have to give them away" (can't remember exact quote). I loved the life-spanning bridge from one's own childhood to a new generation of children, even if not one's own - a bridge to carry one past personal tragedy.
heh- I've used the word "weight" so many times in this comment; oddly enough I didn't experience this story as "heavy" - rather it filled me with lightness, hope, reassurance. Life, after all, after loss. Thank you, Podcastle, for running this one.