An Inheritance of Love

There is a particular kind of grief that comes from abundance, from having been loved in ways that leave a permanent imprint. From dinners and arguments, shared jokes and stubborn silences, from the ordinary days that only reveal their meaning once they are gone.

I know that not everyone gets this kind of grief.

I am one of the lucky ones.

I arrived in Buffalo on a cold winter’s night, not late, but just in time.. “Leora’s time” as my mother use to say. “”You’ll be late to your own funeral” she would laugh as I’d walk in the door 2 hours after my expected ETA…..and I’d always reply “God willing”.

Snow was falling softly over the city, an old industrial city carved by weather, and a hearty people of a special kind of endurance. I dropped in on dear friends of my parents, people who knew them well enough to love them honestly. They greeted me with wide, genuine smiles and long, familiar hugs. We gathered around a table and did what people have always done in moments like this, we laughed, we cried, we told stories.

We drank a little too much.
We stayed up a little too late.

And Dad was in the room.

I could feel him, his smile, his laughter, and the way he rubbed his hands together as he often did in moments of joy and excitement. Smiling at the shared stories, the flaws remembered with tenderness, the love that had survived time and family dynamics. It was warm. Welcoming. The kind of evening that reminds you that love doesn’t disappear when people die… it simply changes form.

The next morning I woke with a slight hangover, a celebratory one, the kind of hangover that holds more gratitude than regret. Even the city felt hungover, grey, and slushy from the night’s snowfall. As I drove carefully toward the cemetery, thankful that Buffalonians are perhaps the best drivers in the world, I talked to my Dad. I complained about my headache and regrettable stomach. He sat with me without judgment, gently nudging me back to the joy and laughter of the night before.

His presence felt so real, even now as I write this piece, I can see him sitting next to me in the passenger seat directing me to the cemetery.

When I entered the cemetery, the view took my breath away. Rows and rows of headstones blanketed in snow. Tall, bare trees formed a cathedral of branches overhead. The ground lay white under nearly a foot of snow. The hush of falling flakes felt reverent… like the quiet of the ancient stone churches along the Camino de Santiago. Spirit and soul were here.

I didn’t search long. After just a few minutes, I turned… and there they were.

A large, rose-colored headstone bearing the name BASZCZYNSKI. It stopped me in my tracks. It felt as if my grandparents had been waiting for me… waiting for their son. Snow began to fall more steadily as I cleared a small place at the base of the stone, right between my grandfather and grandmother.

Only then did I realize that tears were quietly streaming down my face.

I told them how good a father, Dad, had been. How much I missed him. How grateful I was to bring him home. I placed a small portion of my father’s ashes there, returning him to where his life had begun. There was only me, the hush of snowfall and a sense of love. Simply love.

Later, sitting in the warmth of my car, I realized my hangover had vanished. I smiled at that, and in my mind’s eye I saw my father kiss my forehead.

On the paper the cemetery office had given me, it noted that my grandfather, Alex, was buried on December 14, 1954. My grandmother, Lottie, on December 12, 1992.

I laid my father to rest between them on December 13, 2025.

I don’t know what to call that, coincidence, grace, or an alignment of time beyond my comprehension.

I so wanted to call my parents today. I wanted to tell them about the beauty of a cemetery in winter. I wanted to tell them about the evening with Teresa and Victoria, my stay at HI Buffalo, and talk about lake effect snow and the Buffalo Bills. I miss my parents because I could call them. Because they always answered. Because they were always on the other end of the line, not always perfect, not always in agreement but because they loved me beyond measure and wanted to hear about my day.

As I prepare to return to California, toward sunlight, and new beginnings I realize that I’m getting use to this grief that lives in my body. It rests in the catch of my throat, the drop in my stomach, the constriction in my heart, the way tears wait just beneath the surface. In this grief, a friendship has begun, I’m no longer trying to heal it away. It is love… A new version of love, something rare… a felt love that hugs as grief. A kind of love that only happens over time. An inherited love… a privileged love.

~ Written while walking an inner Camino that led me back to Buffalo, NY, with love, memory, and gratitude.

~Leora Ann Ellis