I wasn’t sure when it would be time to start writing about you. How long I needed to wait before it felt less strange. Whether it was more important that I write, than to wait until it felt less strange. It feels less strange as I write.
Your are gone. You died while I held your right hand, while Gail held your left, on May 29th at 6:50 in the evening. Your breaths were quiet and short after a long day of noisy, crackly breathing, filled with sounds which were hard to describe. Were you suffering, were you talking in whatever way you could still speak? The last time you talked to me was on Wednesday night, the 26th. I got dressed up to go to the opening of an opera. I was wearing my green dress that we both really like. You said I looked beautiful, that I shouldn’t wear my necklace, and you kissed me goodbye. Friday, you opened your eyes a few times, once more to give me another kiss, and that was it. I could barely feel your grasp when I held your hand the next day. I slept next to you, read to you, played music for you, sang to you, on your last day here. I didn’t go very far. I took my bath later that afternoon. Lay in there thinking, this would be my last bath while you were still in this world, and it was.
You are gone. It is almost 11 days. One week since we carried your coffin to your grave, placed a new pair of pumps on top with your red lipstick, sprinkled sand from the beach, and shoveled, lumpy wet earth on top of your casket. You are in the ground now. Your body is in the ground. So is your face, a face that made me, and so many other people, smile. I think you’re free. I have seen you in my head, and felt you. Felt your speed, and some sense that you are happy, if there is a happy. If happy is possible for someone when they die. If your spirit truly separates from your body, then you are off. You are off and running, and happy. Happy to be rid of the body that kept you down.
It is still so fresh, you not being here. It is a strange feeling. I knew it would be. Even though I have tried to imagine what I would feel like when you died, most of my life. I wasn’t sure what would happen to me, whether I would crack. I don’t know if that will happen. I don’t really believe in certain kinds of drama anymore, maybe all kinds. Watching you die helped me understand how normal some things are, like death. Nothing too dramatic about your last moments here, some soft breaths, your eyes open. Me checking your pulses, neck and wrists. Vibrations, but nothing solid. Rubbing your head, the top of your chest, holding your hand, putting my hand above your mouth to feel air, watching to see if your chest is still rising. Then it all stopped, you were silent. You were gone. I felt myself smiling and crying. Smiling because your days of depression, with pills to keep you functioning, and wearing a brace that you felt embarrassed by, a body that you never really liked, those days, which were also filled with lots of laughing, lots of hugs and kisses, and while you could still eat, a lot of good food, those days are done. I don’t know where you are. I know your with me for the rest of my life. You’re in my face, and my heart, you’re in my skin. If you are out there, if there is an out there, if you make it in to some other form, or if you just float out there for a while or if your just simply in the ground and in me, wherever you are, I love you. Lots of people loved you, and liked you. I think you knew that. I hope you knew that. You were a part-time mom to a lot of people over the years. It didn’t come to me until the day of your funeral, it actually came to Kim from the obituary I wrote for you. For your epitaph, “Mother to many”. You left behind a whole lot of kids who will miss you, who are missing you.
