Today, I was rereading a memorial website for a friend who died three years ago.
This is an entry I forgot I wrote:
Tomorrow is Dia de los Muertos and I sit trying to figure out how to remember the people that are gone - just gone. I don't know how to burn them into my brain. I know that's what needs to be done, sear them into some part of my flesh to carry them on, bring them with me. I've lost someone every year since I became a mother, so much so that now I see a pantheon: whenever I think of one, the rest piggyback in, like a Greek chorus, squeezing all together in one small brittle heart. I can only hope that Matthew is finding a kindred spirit with my Gramps, that my Grandma Millie is not driving him nuts, that he welcomes my friend Leah's mother, who died a painful and sudden death last week, and helps her through whatever horror that is. I see Tim Krafft, looking all the 50's poetry beatnik, fully recovered from his overdose, talking to Matthew about noises and how to make them. Becky might dance as Matthew plays though it's not to her taste. This is my comforting delusion. Maybe it's all a crutch and they really are just feeding trees but I hear them talking to each other, making new family as they need to, finding comfort and watching us, sharing friendly gossip about the ones they left behind. And that's not far from a wisp of wind, not too different from providing nutrients for the earth to renew and grow. In fact, it could be exactly the same thing.
This is an entry I forgot I wrote:
Tomorrow is Dia de los Muertos and I sit trying to figure out how to remember the people that are gone - just gone. I don't know how to burn them into my brain. I know that's what needs to be done, sear them into some part of my flesh to carry them on, bring them with me. I've lost someone every year since I became a mother, so much so that now I see a pantheon: whenever I think of one, the rest piggyback in, like a Greek chorus, squeezing all together in one small brittle heart. I can only hope that Matthew is finding a kindred spirit with my Gramps, that my Grandma Millie is not driving him nuts, that he welcomes my friend Leah's mother, who died a painful and sudden death last week, and helps her through whatever horror that is. I see Tim Krafft, looking all the 50's poetry beatnik, fully recovered from his overdose, talking to Matthew about noises and how to make them. Becky might dance as Matthew plays though it's not to her taste. This is my comforting delusion. Maybe it's all a crutch and they really are just feeding trees but I hear them talking to each other, making new family as they need to, finding comfort and watching us, sharing friendly gossip about the ones they left behind. And that's not far from a wisp of wind, not too different from providing nutrients for the earth to renew and grow. In fact, it could be exactly the same thing.
(Posted by: Queenie at October 31, 2004 06:46 PM)
I can only plead the universe that's true, for M's sake and for mine.