I arrived home this morning in San Francisco to the astonishment that it was not only sunny at SFO, but also that the sun continued to remain out even as we traveled up 280 and into the Richmond District. Sometimes, it’s the little things that make these visits happier.

What wasn’t fun was listening to my parents bicker in the car ride home about everything from whether they were going to change Ed’s photo in his niche to something as simple as where a reusable bag was located in the house.

The house looks worse than it did the last time I was here three months ago. More piles of clutter everywhere. The downstairs’ windows are all covered in black blankets for only God knows what reason. The paint has peeled and flaked down there to the point where the Bowery Mission looks more glamorous than my parents’ basement. Looking at the walls,  I really think that this back room leading into the yard looks like it will collapse any day now. I spent about an hour dusting the mantles and cleaning off framed photos in the living and dining areas, and my bedroom. The dusting isn’t going to help a completely cluttered and dangerously piled-up cord situation in pretty much every room. Where does all this crap come from, and it’s not even being used?!

The fun just increased when after we came back from dinner with my cousins and aunt, we opened the front door and were greeted with a big gush of grey smoke and the unmistakable smell of burning. My mom had left a pot on the stove with the flame on unattended for a good two hours. The contents of the pot had completely evaporated, and the pot was burnt to a crisp. The stove top even has burn remnants now.

My fear is that one day, my parents are going to get killed in some accident that they caused, and I’m going to have to fly home and deal with all of this. These are the moments when I feel loneliness the most because Ed is gone from this world, and I have no one else in the world who fully understands the massive amount of stress and adversity our parents can inflict.