The Month of Ghosts

I hate August.

For most people, August is pretty good. It's a big vacation month and in Minnesota it is the time of the State Fair, which is always a time of great joy and gastrointestinal excess. It's one of the nicest months in Minnesota, with warm days and comfortable nights. Most people I know like August and it's perfectly reasonable. There's a lot to like.

But not me. I hate August.

In my family, August is the Month of Ghosts. The reason for that? My father passed away on August 30, 1990 and my mother passed away on August 14, 2000. Even as those events pass further back into the miasma of time, they still hurt.

The funny thing is, this month should be pretty good. We have family events back in Wisconsin and a vacation to Chicago planned for the middle of the month. As regular readers of this feature know, I was born in Chicago (technically the highly fashionable suburb of Berwyn, self-proclaimed "City of Homes," which I assume is used to differentiate it from equally fashionable Bedford Park) and we haven't been back for a number of years now. It will fun to play tourist and take the kids to see Sue at the Field Museum and maybe have a cheezborger at the Billy Goat, among other requests I expect to honor. That will be great and my kids will have a wonderful time there.

It's been a tough year for a lot of people I know - I've had to write too many obituaries in this space in recent months. Sometimes it's tempting to think you can take the approach that this song suggests (about September, but never mind that). But that's not how you deal with ghosts. The best way to fight the Month of Ghosts is by adding good memories. So that is what we are going to do.