Our parents are dead, both sets. Long time. Well, except for my father, who passed just a little more than two years ago.

And we didn’t stay at “home” after we married. Home for us both was Rochester, NY; him in the city near Lake Ontario, west side, and me in a suburb, not far from Lake Ontario, east side.

Because we came from generally the same place, we’re rooted in generally the same hometown things. Things like Kodak (the big employer in town, headquarters), Sea Breeze (the amusement park), white hot dogs and Jenny cream ale. We knew Midtown Plaza, now long gone, and Abbott’s Custard.

We were also rooted in the same Sicilian-American culture. Sunday dinners a la famiglia were the thing in the years we still lived there. At my house with my parents, brother, sister and grandparents. At his house with his brother, parents and the numerous aunts, uncles and cousins that comprised his huge extended family. Pasta. Jug wine. Passionate conversation.

It’s been years since we’ve had that, either of us, and of course, we’ll never really have it again. Since we didn’t have children and we’re distant from our siblings, it’s just the two of us now.

I miss that sense of belonging somewhere, in a group, in a family. Yes, of course we recreate parts of it with our dear friends.

I am at peace with it.