Some things we used to do seems like you don’t see a lot of anymore these days–games we used to play, ones that used hand/eye coordination, like jacks, or jumprope, or clapping games, accompanied by chants, or singing. And singing–we did a lot of that. We sang at school and at camp, at church and at temple, we sang every Saturday morning on the backyard swingset, belting out “A Spoonful of Sugar” or “Edelweiss,” sometimes in harmony, but mostly in unison, while we pumped back and forth. We sang while we rode our bikes round and round the block, looking for fun, or looking for something. Something happening.

And whatever we did, we did it in groups, mostly. Twos or threes, or larger roving packs. On our bikes or on the playground, No Child Was An Island. We were together, in groups, in circles. We were in circles a lot. We sang in circles; around the fire at camp, or in the park while making clover chains. We played in circles; “Duck Duck Goose” at recess, or “Telephone” at birthday parties. Storytime at the library. Gym class for Posture Queen. When Miss Compton sat us down in a circle and brought out that silver cardboard crown, twenty little girls instantly sat up ramrod straight. We folded hands in laps, bit our lips to remain serene and tall and keep from bursting while inwardly we cried: “Pick me…pick me…Pick ME!”

Couple years ago we had a grade-school reunion, our first since turning fifty, so a) the music wasn’t quite so loud, and b) we had a great turn-out. Missy Levine came from California and her parents graciously hosted lox and bagels on Sunday morning for the girls. They still lived in their same home of fifty years, so it was a real treat for us; many of our own, perfectly lovely childhood homes had been torn down to make way for the spec builders’ version of the English baronial manse with three-car garage.

The invitation had been issued around midnight between tequila shots as we rode around town on a double-decker bus, ducking car-wash sweeps of raindrop-laden oak branches and laughing hysterically at the (unusually young) public safety official we acquired who really seemed to want to communicate his concerns about telephone wires to the bus driver, and then solicitously trailed us in his cruiser all the way back to the golf club. So the invitation may not have been heard by all, since it made the rounds kind of like in the game of “Telephone,” except not in a circle.

The next morning I walked over to Missy’s house on Greenwood and joined a dozen or so women around Mrs. Levine’s dining room table. Mr. Levine, a class favorite, joked and chatted with us for awhile before retiring to his favorite chair in the living room to read the paper. Mrs. Levine kept the coffee going, and Missy’s little sister Janet, who appeared to have matured remarkably, joined us, as we sat around the table for a couple hours, spinning our tales of families, jobs, kids. Just the girls.

When I heard the news about Mr. Levine my heart went out to his family and I felt glad and lucky I’d gotten the chance to see him more-or-less recently. But a couple days later, in the middle of the night, Mr. and Mrs. Levine in the house on Greenwood is gone hit me like a ton of bricks and I lay there trying to figure out why. I went around the circle at Missy’s dining room table, and then the circle in my mind because not everyone had been there, and I realized that a significant number of us had lost our dads young, in their fifties or sixties. Absurdly young for them, from our current perspective, and as for us, well, we were just kids. Before the first job, car, trip down the aisle, baby, achievement-promotion-laurel. A long time ago. That grief is so salted away in a past lifetime it hardly hurts to walk the streets, ride the double-decker bus, nosh on bagels at Missy’s.

But this with Mr. Levine was a different matter. Each one of us, each little girl, has been trying hard for years and years to sit up straight and keep her crown from slipping. We need both hands to play our game. We need our balance. But to lose Leonard is to have the ground swept from beneath our feet, because with him go all the fathers. He is what should have been. With him go all the fathers.