Lugnasa Garlic Planting Moon
What to say? The wound so deep, the insult so grievous. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
I remember that elevator ride with my mother, she on the gurney her face tortured by her brain in agony. She had already begun to move away, fast, from the one who walked with me to the ice cream shop not far from our house and bought me a sundae for my good grades. Who held my hand when I was scared. Who taught me to watch the spider out our kitchen window as a wonder of the universe.
The phone call. Unexpected in February. My sister, normally in Singapore, here for a visit. A call from Alexandria, long abandoned home. Dad died. Just died there sitting in a chair. Winked out. Gone.
None escape. None. It is this truth, underscored with bright black lines by the death of the one’s we love, that creates the wonder. Our lives. Brief. Random. Often, as the Odyssey says, filled with pain and suffering, yet still. Still. Glorious. Radiant. Precious.
Sometimes I think these things. Feel them. But do not say them. Now, now I do.