Showing posts with label life and death. Show all posts

You would have been 65 today

I attended your last birthday party.
I smelled the sulfuric remnant from the last candle you ever blew out.

The end was near, we all knew it; we all wanted it by then:
Your daughter, your then-husband, your friend who brought cake, me.
You didn't want the fuss, but somehow even with a goddamnedtube down your throat,
you accepted flowers and attention and a cake (what the fuck happened to that cake, a cake you would never eat)
with poise.

That same poise erects your daughter's spine.
Bone and tissue made more by
Your spirit, a rod shooting upward from her pelvis to her third eye.





You'd love your life right now, had you been able to cheat death.
You have two born grandchildren,
Both wild and chubby and winsome.

You would be free from any man
Full of serpentine lies and any woman
low with pitiful betrayals.
But then again,
You already are.


What were your other birthday celebrations like?
I suspect you always disliked fuss.
But eyes sit on your shoulders as naturally as your freckles did.
You feel them, but they don't bother you.

Did you plan an epic 65th journey? Europe with Jessica? Hawaii with Joshua? The beach with your sisters?

I can smell the Chardonnay swirling in your glass.
Only last night I began to chop vegetables for dinner and heard you scolding me
To pour a glass first.
Somehow making an act intended for the nourishment of others
an act also intended to nourish me.
As if to say, I am here too! amidst all the hunger.
Am I saying it to me?
Or are you? Are you here?

I can see the mischievous secret in your sideways glances,
Always somehow knowing something no one else in the room knew.
I can see your half smile and mauve Estee Lauder lipstick.
I admire the elegant click clack of always manicured, rose-colored nails.
The skin that had begun to loosen around the knuckles and veins.

There's something I've been meaning to bring up with you, the next time
you came around.
There was a baton-passing we never discussed.

Sure, you always accepted me, but there was an initial distance.
A cautious, aloof detachment
while you sized up my intentions with your firstborn.
I'm not sure when we switched over
Or even if we really have.
(Is it me or is it you inside of me whose heart pumps cool water to quell her soul's inflammation)
(Is it me or is it you inside of me whose wings flap violently to conjure the wind so she can take off )
(Is it me or is it you inside of me whose hands are tied behind backs, watching her punch and be punched)
(Is it me or is it you inside of me whose knife caresses the skin of those who lied to us all)

I don't appreciate the helplessness, thank you very much.
I have enough of my own to deal with.
I don't need yours too.

Now that I think of it,
I wonder.
Where did all your feelings go? Like your ashes, were they also unceremoniously tossed into the ocean?



What happened to the time to enjoy it.
I'm still not over the cheat of it.
But this is about your birthday.

So we will gather, les femmes.
We will pour in your name,
Today, when you would have been 65.

-crm
death denise jessica
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The Heavy










The doctors tell us to prepare for the end, but my being fights it still.  I chide myself heavily for denial.  I berate my desire to swoop in and save her.  I sit uncomfortably in moments of guilt where I forget that anything is wrong.

The only truth I cling to is that there is no correct way to grieve.  There is no manual for death, no perfect thing to say to the family, and no ideal way to endure.  We are as we are.  We survive, we compartmentalize, we create coping mechanisms, we lash out, we drink too much, we don't sleep enough, we find faith, we lose faith.  No analysis, no questions, no higher road to travel.

We just have to be.
Red.
Mooney.
Madame.
Saint.

As I stare at the kitchen window,
looking at nothing and everything.
Suddenly, I realize how perfect the flowers are.
How fragrant the wind is.
And how all is a gift to help us endure
the unthinkable.



I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone
Rainier Maria Rilke


I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don't want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.







death jessica life and death
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the silence

No, I am not speaking of the ominous villain in Doctor Who (I love you if you get that reference), but I am speaking of the strange periods of silence I've recently endured.  Times in life where one desires no company other than a spouse, no conversation other than with beautiful films, and more sleep than most people dream of.

Monk's Prayer


Perhaps this silence is due to my being sick for almost 9 days now.  I've left the house only 3 times in that stint, and just when I thought I was getting better, I woke up this morning with what I can only guess is a different cold.  How festive.

Despite feeling strange, solitary, and rather disabled, I've been enjoying the energy, the Feng Shui, of being in a house that has been lived in so well.  I've cooked several amazing meals, had countless cups of tea, snuggled with Joel any old time I wanted, stewed cider, and baked an apple pie.  I suppose I am saying that I am thankful for being ill in that it has demanded sleep and nourishing food and soul-giving solitude.  I am thankful for a body.

Let me explain.

The Universe and I have been at odds lately.  We've been in discussion about endings.  I am fighting this impossible battle between the biological need to survive and the inevitable truth that we all die, and must.   The human race will most likely be entirely wiped out in the next million years, with nothing to offer the cosmos or other lifeforms elsewhere (except The Voyager, Joel comforts me).   Moreover, I suppose the real struggle is that I cannot control either. I wish I could be obsessed with beginnings, but instead I've been struggling so much with the fact that life ends.  Just when bliss introduces herself to me with a jarring handshake, she slips through my fingers because I think of when it will end. I am trying to accept that this issue has been brought to me to examine and chew on, trying to see its essence instead of its shadow, but I have a distrust of the temporary.

Simply stated, I am trying to reconcile death with life, and it seems everyone has some sort of lovely answer for how they have arrived at their own particular version of peace. I suspect that most deal with it by ignoring it, or praying a lot, or distracting themselves with the busyness of life.  I bring up this comparison to others because I believe our notions of personal happiness are based largely on how we see others living and what they chose to pour their precious lives into.  I am clinically depressed, so it makes sense to me that I would wonder why everyone is so darn happy all the time, expressing how they find certain weather patterns, particular bowls of fruit, or long vacations nothing but entirely rewarding, afraid to express anything negative because of what that might mean, or what others might think.  In the end, when we do not take the time to express all parts of life - the good and the bad, and express both with tact and love - I feel we are performing a great disservice to those in our care, who listen to us and glean inspiration from us.  If we are only expressing good, those who feel badly about life will feel ashamed that they can't just feel good like so and so does all the time.  This is a complete rabbit-trail, I might add.  All of this to say that it often feels as though I am the only one thinking about the inevitable end of the Universe, and balancing the desperate desire to stay alive with the intellectual acceptance of death.  Of course I'm not.

Back to feeling thankful for the human body I have.

Therefore, in the midst of this very confusing mental dialogue, I find it especially rewarding when I am made newly aware of the awe of the human body, decaying and fleeting though it be.

It costs me much, and I have more caveats than acceptance of the notion, but I again say to the cosmos and to you, I am thankful for this body.

Hope your Thanksgiving was meaningful, at the very least.
cosmos death holidays
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