I wish she were alive. I wish it every moment I get to think. It’s exhausting.
Category: Grief
You just…
Yeah. You just… keep going?
A certain grief
And we can call this moment Exhibit 94, 509. This not sinking in.
As you all might know, life has the tendency—especially as of late—to shit all over me. You, like I, may be thinking: Another bad spot? Really?
After the call, I found myself in the car—rushing and crying and screaming and navigating through Pittsburgh traffic to Allegheny General Hospital. I sat on the Parkway, a standstill, sobbing to the million memories that hit me, a slideshow:
Remember the time you sat by the bay in Cape Cod and watched the sky until early morning, where you cut limes for her rum and refused her another drink at 4 a.m.
The color teal.
Standing atop Mt. Washington at sunset and dancing in the orange light, puffed up by winter coats, knitted scarves and gloves without fingers.
Singing “You’re so Vain.”
Remember the glass bottle full of tiny shells from the Dead Sea.
Watching her watch her Koi swim below.
The time you mocked her easy lifestyle and told her you’d come visit her even if she lived in a trailer park—even if the time you spent together was playing 500 Rum and eating Chef Boyardee. And to prove it? You brought her a can the next time you came over.
My brain gets the best of me. And since this moment, it hasn’t stopped with the snapshots, the words, the smell of plastic and death in her hospital room. I smell it everywhere. I realize now, more than before, she is everywhere. Maybe it is the fear of forgetting. Like with my dad. The years have come quick and with it, the memories have faded.
For a week, everything was underwater. With the amount of crying I did [both angry-at-the-world and end-of-the-world tears], my eyes were swollen to half-visibility. I was certain I had been emptied of tears. I was certain there was nothing left. I was certain she’d wake up now that her heart was fixed. It was only a matter of time.
But she was showing more signs of regression. Her pupils ceased to dilate; she stopped reacting to pain. And her brain, they said, was swelling and there was nothing they could do. She went too long without oxygen causing “irreparable damage” [a phrase I still cannot get out of my head, the way the doctor said it with brown protruding eyes, head down.] I was certain they were mistaken and that the Universe wouldn’t let this happen. It couldn’t. Not to any of us that stood by her bed sobbing and holding her limp hands, to the us that needed her, that could still hear her laughter ringing in our ears, could find pieces of her—like evidence—everywhere.
I picked at beige colored cafeteria food for days trying to imagine tomorrow.
Thank you for reading this. I know it’s “too soon” to write about—a writing instructor would say. But I have to. I want to remember all of it. Even this fresh grief.
mt
Short. Sweet. But alive.
So after some nutty health issues and loss, I’m alive. Just sayin’. Through the events of the last few days, I’ve still been keeping up with this poem-a-day extravaganza.
Today’s poetry prompt was to write a “tentative poem.” I got hit with this image, you know. Sometimes I do that. I get a clear picture. It doesn’t often make sense, but it’s something. Like shadow puppets in my brain.
“Somewhere someone dreams of ellipses…”
I couldn’t get it out of my head. I guess it’s about fighting the routine, the mundane… keeping one eye out for a detour. Something jarring. Because if you catch a sip, even, of those sparks in between the layers of “filler”—days and days of work and obligation—it just might be enough to make it worthwhile.
I spent my whole life waiting impatiently for the next page, something to look forward to. I needed it to stay sane, to motivate me to fight. I needed that reason, remember?
Sometimes people fight the daily. Sometimes vanilla isn’t enough. It’s ok to need a detour. But. Patience.
That’s what I need. That’s what it’s about.
Sleep now.
mt