I called my mom today after I got off work, and I could tell she was on edge because she kept asking me the same questions twice minutes after asking them the first time. I asked her what she was doing, and she said that she and my dad were getting ready to go visit Ed at the Columbarium. Since they weren’t here on the 22nd, they had planned to come see him after they came back from Monterey.

On the train ride home later tonight, I suddenly felt really solemn when I thought about all those times that Ed hated spending time alone with my parents, and all those calls he would make to me when both of them were not home to rant to me, or that brief period when he had a mobile phone, and he’d use it to call me to complain about them. As much as I love my parents, they always see the glass half empty and look for the worst in every person and every situation; it’s just the way they are, and I’m sure it has been shaped by life circumstances they have faced as well as bad experiences with others they’ve had. Ed knew this, and he couldn’t stand it. Even in their calmest moments together, Ed was always tense and uneasy; he never felt fully comfortable and was always scared of the next second when our dad would criticize him for doing something “stupid” or our mom would snap at him for something else nit-picky.

And when I thought about all this, I realized: the truth is that their calmest times together have been… now, when Ed is no longer of human form, and my parents go visit him on their own at the Neptune Columbarium. As depressing as that is, it is the reality of the situation. My dad can’t say anything to put him down, my mom is too overcome by her grief of losing him, now just over a year ago, that she can’t get mad about anything, and Ed… is just quiet and observes them observing him.