poeticdesires

Category: Death

  • Ironies

    I got the phone call, knew what was going to happen soon.  Knew that there would come a day in my near future where I would live in a world where my father was dead.

    I put my mug down, my phone down, opened up the door to the Sun Room, closed the door, and collapsed onto the floor.  I wailed into the carpet.  My throat hurt more than I thought it ever could, and so quickly.  My breathing was hurried, barely any air.

    I stopped myself.  I needed to breathe.  Realized if I continued to cry, continued to blast out my emotions, my hyperventilating would cause me to pass out.

    What will make me feel better?  What do I want right now?

    I texted Gray.  I drove to the city.  Saw my best friend.  Spoke to my mentor on the phone.  And, before I drove back home, I gave my mother a hug.

    As I rose from my cry, it occurred to me: my position there on the floor.  As I began the process of grief, before the ultimate moment had even come, my legs bent and tucked under my chest, my head on the floor, my arms in front; I was in child’s pose.

    ~

    The hospital my father died in, the one I visited thrice before he passed, with it’s marble walls and soft couches and inviting faces.  I’d been there before he slipped, thirty years earlier.

    The hospital where I was born was the hospital in which my father died.

    ~

    I found it while looking in the mirror and brushing my teeth.  It was not too long ago when I made the discovery, just a bit before my current emotional rollercoaster began.  I only found one, about two inches long.  A gray hair.

    When I visited him, saw him in the hospital bed, his face vacant, his limbs looking less than, I noticed his hair.  Someone had pulled it back into a bun sitting atop his head.  His salt and pepper hair, a mess.

    ~

    As I drove to work on Saturday, waiting to pull out onto the main thoroughfare, I paused to wait for a funeral line to pass.  About two dozen cars slowly drove through the intersection, flashing lights and hanging signs marking their grief.

    That night, while at work, I got a call from my brother.  Dad had taken a turn.

    ~

    As I drove my younger brother up to the hospital, I didn’t want him to talk.  But he’s my brother, so he did.

    He’d had a dream about Dad, before all this had started.  He dreamed about Dad not being well.

    “Isn’t that something?”

    “Whatever, dude.”  I muttered it.  I dismissed him.

    Because, in my last session with Doc, I uttered words I could never take back.  We spoke about how my father was old and if I wanted to repair the relationship with him I needed to take the initiative and be understanding about his life, all he’s gone through.  After all, being that he was 83 yrs. old, at best he had maximum ten years left.

    “Yes, my father is not long for this world.”

    I didn’t realize how right I, or brother, was.

    ~

    Television is too pretty when it comes to death.

    I love Netflix, have been catching up on new episodes of my favorite shows, and I saw one tonight where a character was on life support, in a coma.  They looked too pretty.  No slack jaw.  No eyes rolled up into their head.  No blood or crud on their teeth.  Too pretty; too clean.

    The nurses told us we should leave the room when they took the breathing tube out.  Most of us did; my older brother didn’t.  I’m glad I didn’t have to see that.  In the show, it was simple and clean.  Real life is much messier.

    Ella, when they took her off, just passed.  My Dad last several hours, from around 1:30pm til around 8:30pm.

    It’s hard for television to express that, to accurately show what it’s like to wait for someone you love to die.  It’s not a straight line of misery.  There are moments when you almost smile, when you take yourself away from the sadness.  Looking at something stupid on YouTube.  Stories about this or that.  Leaving the room for food or to go walk outside.  It seems to me a person can only take misery in doses.

    My Dad is dead.  I still haven’t cried.  I’m hoping the Labyrinth at camp will help.  Or possibly the funeral.  Or when I talk to Doc.  Because, right now, every time I come close, I lock it down.

    I was going to write a blog post about two weeks ago titled Breaking the Box.  I put my feelings about my Dad in a box and locked them away for a weekend.  I wanted to have fun instead of focusing on conflicted emotions with him.  This was before he got sick.

    My last session was all about me talking about said emotions with Doc.  I opened the box for an hour.  I had hoped, over time, to learn to break the box, to accept my Dad for who he is and find a place where I could just love him despite the pain my life dealt me.

    Now I don’t know now if I’ll ever break the box.

  • Missed

    This Labor Day weekend I spent Friday, Saturday, and the morning of Sunday at FetFest. What I experienced during this event was my heart riped in two.

    My time spent at camp was colored just as much by the people not there as the people who were.

    As some folks know, a local rigger passed away recently. I did not know them, but I wish I had.

    On the Friday night of FetFest, the Rope Village held a remembrance for our parted friend. I arrived about fifteen minutes late, having not properly budgeted my time.

    Standing against a wall by the entrance to the Barn, I listened as people recounted their stories of this beautiful individual.

    This person was another rope switch, with a genuine heart and love for others. They were a trickster and a true friend. Their favorite color was pink.

    Hanging on one side of the Barn was a strand of pink rope, a shiminawa, in which people placed thoughts and messages about their passed friend.

    As I stood and listened, a friend spotted me and gestured for me to join them. I quietly made my way over and sat with them. We held hands and leaned our heads together, each us of taking care of the other.

    As so many people spoke about this amazing person, all I could think was such a loss it was for them to be gone.

    When I read their profile, I saw a number of interests that intersected with mine. There was of course rope, but this person was also a switch. My heart sank at the realization of never occurred conversations, never dreamt up ties, never recounted tales, never experienced moments.

    But I also realized having them at all, if only for their brief time on this earth, was a gift.

    With so many people in that Barn, so many friends who cared, so many individuals this person touched, I saw loss but I also saw friendship. I saw tears and smiles. I saw hurt and appreciation.

    I saw a person remembered who had spread love to those around them. Can anyone ask for more in this life?

    The shiminawa at the remembrance is to travel to many events throughout this coming year. More friends will speak about them. More people will recount stories and fond memories. Though our community lost a member, they will still be remembered.

  • She Is Lost

    I wanna dance with somebody
    I wanna feel the heat with somebody
    Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody
    With somebody who loves me

    I often feel weird when a celebrity dies. Because of the nature of our society, it feels like you almost know the person, even though you really don’t. The parts of their lives we see are filtered through the news media, through reality shows, through publicists.

    Some deaths pass over my head because I don’t know the person or their story was just not a part of my life. And then there are those whose presence was weaved into my existence to such an extent that I stop and pause when I hear about the news.

    Last night, as I drove to a restaurant to have dinner with a friend, I found myself singing classic Whitney Houston songs rather loudly in my car. My R&B stations had gone to all Whitney in dedication to her life. I’d learned of the news just before I left, having already stopped for a moment to let the knowledge sink in.

    As I drove, and I sang, I realized how much her music had touched my life. Memories of sitting in the car with my Mom driving here or there. Memories of family members, of summer get togethers, cookouts, barbecues, and the like. Being little and dancing around on my Mom’s King sized bed in just my long night shirt singing to her music on the radio.

    A year or two ago, I bought my Mom a greatest hits album of Whitney’s for her birthday or Christmas; I can’t remember which. My Mom has it in her car still, and not just in its case. It’s in the CD rotator, one of five she listens to on a regular basis.

    Before Bobby Brown. Before the reality show. Before the drugs. Before the mediocre movie roles. She was this vibrant woman with a voice that shook me. Her voice was a part of my childhood.

    So, once again, we’ve lost another celebrity. Possibly to drugs. Possibly because her body was weaken by the toxins. Possibly it was an aneurysm or a stroke or a heart attack or a slip-and-fall or any number of things that can befall anyone at any time. We don’t know yet.

    However she passed, last night we lost another song bird, another voice of our community. She is lost.

  • Perspective

    My mother’s best friend’s father died the day before Thanksgiving. Today was his funeral.

    I didn’t know this man. I had maybe met him once when I was a child, too young to remember the encounter, but I found myself at his signing off all the same.

    I was there for the family, with whom I am an honorary member. I grew up with the cousins, call my mother’s best friend, along with her brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles. I see them at holidays. They came to my college graduation. In most ways I am closer to them than my own blood relations.

    Though I did not know him, I saw this man’s influence in the crowd of faces who sat, quietly crying, remembering their father, grandfather, or great grandfather. He lived to the bright young age of 93. We should all be so lucky.

    As the family processed in, I found myself slipping my hand into my mother’s palm. Being witness to the ceremony of saying goodbye to a loved one makes you appreciate even more those you still have.

    This was a black funeral, which meant a few things were going to happen.

    1- Singing. There were plenty of gospel songs, including His Eye Is On The Sparrow, which is basically a cliche occurrence at black funerals.

    2- At least one, if not two, preachers/pastors/reverends were going to speak. There were lots of mentions of God, Christ, Jesus, the Savior, the Redeemer, etc.

    3- Are you saved? Everyone needs to be saved. Do you have a church home? The only way to get to heaven is through Christ… You get the drift. As one who questions her beliefs on spirituality and religion on an almost daily basis, I sat patiently waiting.

    Thankfully, the Pastor who gave the Eulogy, before he spun into his speech on number three, elicited a few chuckles from the attendees. He explained his job was to lift us up, and he seemed to do that quite well, as well as move the proceedings along at a relatively brisk pace.

    As experiences go, it could’ve been worse.

    I hadn’t been to a funeral since the death of Ella, my cousin who was more like my third parent, a few years ago. They read the same poem that I had to read after I finished her obituary: I’m Free. Seeing those words in the program made me tear up a bit.

    They say that funerals are a celebration of life rather than mourning the dead. It is very uncertain and one cannot predict what might happen. that’s the reason many people consider Making a Will earlier

    Funerals are for the living, remembering the dead and saying goodbye. As one who had no particular attachment to this man, but a deep love for his family, I hoped the day gave them some peace.

  • In Memoriam

    In the suburbs outside where I grew up, there is cemetery that acts as the final resting place for the black middle and upper class.  Surrounded by expensive homes and a few acres of corn, it is an odd sight to come upon. 

    Every Memorial Day, this home for the dead has a homecoming of sorts.  Hundreds of people come to place flowers at the sight of their loved ones.  This year, I also took part in this ritual.

    Driving to the cemetery, you would hardly know a city was close behind you.  Take a turn, pass a few apartment buildings, and drive for ten minutes.  Gradually, houses get bigger.  The land surrounding each expands.  One car garages become two.  Carports become driveways become private roads.  Pools sink into the ground.  Tennis courts rise.  You know this is not where you were before.  Foliage covers the road, obscuring the brilliant sunlight that would otherwise pour through.  It feels as if you are privy to some secret hideaway, some better place to live.  How ironic that it takes death for these black folks to, “move on up.”

    Turning into the cemetery, you are immediately greeted by a volunteer in a yellow shirt.  You roll down your window and they ask, “Do you know where you are going?”  I knew.  I remembered the way: down the hill, past the large floral sign, around the curve with famous black folks graves marked in bronze & marble, up the hill with the mausoleum to the left, go about a quarter of the ways down the hill on the right.  I remembered the way we took, carrying Ella’s body in tow.  I remembered the line of parked cars, the men in dress shirts who I’d never met before, walking across the grass, sitting in the folding chairs on the earth, never actually finding stillness. 

    As I drove towards where she lay, the sheer enormity of people was daunting.  Cars lined the sides, down and up and down the hills.  I made my way, but was stopped not twenty feet from where I needed to park.  There was a jam.  Over a dozen cars, including mine, needed to back out.  I became frustrated, annoyed, and contemplating leaving.  I was already having a bad day (I’ll talk about that in another post).  But I didn’t leave, not yet.  I waited for a moment, watching the people walk by.  A woman carried a small child passed out on her arm.  Life & death are so preciously close.  A man walked on crutches, his right leg gone.  Death ever present; who knows when the end will come.

    I turned around and parked my car down yet another hill.  I walked towards the plots.  I found my family.  Aunties & Uncles in the same grave; Ella just below them.  I brushed off their markers.  I didn’t know what to say.  In situations like these, I always feel awkward.  Am I suppose to cry?  Am I suppose to say something?  What am I suppose to do?  I half expected an altercation to ensue; I had anticipated other family members being there.  But it was just me, alone, with the crowds of people seeing their loved ones.  I told Ella I missed her.  I saw the small damage done to Aunties & Uncles marker.  I went over to one of the volunteers.  He put in a work order for the fix, which apparently was common.  I left.

    When I got back to my car, I pulled out the rose my ex gave me when Ella died.  I had carried it in my car since that day, two years ago.  I put it in some tall grass and took a picture for posterity (they only allow fresh flowers on the graves).  I was okay.

    I don’t know if I’ll go back next year.  But I don’t think it really matters if I do.  Family is in your heart, not in a hole in the ground.