This morning, while laying in bed, just two weeks past the 7th anniversary of your metamorphosis, I thought of you. It’s new to me to lay in bed, liminal space during the earliest morning hours. It’s been a retraining of my survivor mode ways, not to jump out of bed as soon as I wake; to linger, and unfurl, and gently open myself to the day. To spend slow, generous time with my body, saying hello and noticing how it feels to be alive. I didn’t realize how I used sleep as a portal to safety for so many years, until that one day in Kundalini class I remembered I used to say the prayer every night before bed as a child; now I lay me down to sleep / I pray thy lord my soul to keep / and if I shall die before I awake / I pray thy lord my soul to take. Who taught that prayer to me? Likely grandma, though you would have been there too. And in that moment I realized I was never afraid of death, death would have been the relief for the pain and suffering that was happening in the waking moments of life. Sleep offered sweet reprieve from battles ongoing outside my bedroom door. It wasn’t death, after all that paralyzed me, it was life, those monstrous, loud dragons that raged slamming doors, pacing hallways, escalating energies. The prayer was an incantation for my soul to be safely guided and protected during the night while the battles were fought; allowing me to remain relatively unharmed, though the damage was done, the noises and venomous words seeped into my sleeping mind.
Notthat I was asking or praying for death, it seemed inevitable that it might be my fate, any given night, to not make it to the next morning, and so I asked to be forgiven for whatever it was that I did to cause the war to break out, again. Was my room not clean enough, were my grades not good enough, was I not quiet enough, was I asking for too much, was I too queer, what set them off? I’ve never been afraid of death, I was afraid of living. Because living meant taking up space, it meant being seen and heard, it meant existing, which felt so dangerous, just to exist. Even though I was born into this life created out of desire to bring union and another human into this world. Born of love and into love, some form of it. Which means I am meant to be here, unconditionally.
Thismorning, while laying in bed, it occurred to me, that all those coins, these past 7 years, were you. Showing me you are with me, thanking me for what I was able to do for you, reminding me I am loved and supported and cared for, unconditionally. They kept me going during my struggles in Durango, that pile of coins at the crosswalk just when I needed an extra dose of magic. A dose of sunshine to remind me that we are all cared for and loved by the universe no matter our actions or judgments in this life. I must have crossed the threshold recently of me forgiving myself for my perceived inadequacy of caring for you in those final months. Now I recognize that you were there with me, as I processed it all, I can’t even recall when I mostly was able to reconcile with myself, though it hasn’t been long.
Thisyear I finally took that collection of coins that you believed were so precious. A while back after you died, and I cleared out the storage unit, I separated out the coins by type, year, and mint. So when I took the box in, and the coin dealer had trouble fitting his fat fingers into the dividers, he dumped them all out, and hastily sorted through them. It hurt a little, to watch how haphazardly he undid my work, but he would know, and swiftly separated and counted, didn’t even check dates or mints, and declared $455.50 – mostly in those dimes you had collected.
Thankyou, for the fourth timely gift of money, I’m sure you’re watching me now shaking your head at how far I’ve jumped into the void of potential financial ruin. The coins gave me just the boost I needed to keep me going for the next month or so. In reflection the injection of funds has always come during a pivotal moment in my life, allowing for expansive growth and quantum leaps in faith. Last time truly allowed for momentous shifts that prepared me well for last year when I left. I hope you were proud when we used the inheritance to move back to Durango, and paid off the condo. But it didn’t last long, and parlayed that security back into debt and acquired an income property. And then again when I found the house, and suddenly we had two. And not long after inherited a third. I’m a manifesting generator you know. And I’d like to think I get my real estate finesse from grandma.
Andthat time before when you paid off Tod as my graduation gift. I felt so guilty, I don’t think I had told you, or anyone really, maybe dad, I cannot recall, that I had, just weeks earlier ran it out of oil, which bent a piston. We were on a road trip back to Durango from Denver, but even before we left I heard dad’s voice in my head—check your oil—but I hadn’t been driving it. We drove Tod that winter weekend with friends and filled it with laughter and music, and when we stopped for gas in Pagosa, I heard again—maybe check the oil—but I didn’t and we switched drivers. And just as we crested the hill outside of Chimney Rock, where there is no cell service, and a lone, creepy, run–down, closed gas station and taxidermy shop, the engine died, and we had to pull in.
Suspiciouslythe crypt-keeper-looking taxidermist was there, and so we asked if we could use the phone inside the shop where dust lingered and lazed on the glass counter. And I wondered if they dust off the candybars before they sell them in the summer when they open, and where all the dust came from in just a couple months since being closed. The phone, just like the service station was a time capsule, and could have been a movie set for a period piece slasher movie, the phone hung on the wall and had one of those fifty foot cords that tangles into only three feets worth of freedom.
Sowhen you made that final payment for me, I squirmed on the inside with shame, that you had paid off my mistake, my inadequacy to care for my vehicle, I didn’t feel worthy. And weeks later when Tod was backed into, shoved and pushed up and out away from the curb, it damaged the wheelweld and the back hatch. And insurance inexplicably totalled it, and cashed me back out, what you had put in. I was sad to see it go, spacious with a/c and didn’t leak coolant like the jeep you gifted me in high school.
Iloved that jeep too, though I didn’t totally know how to care for the mechanical parts of that vehicle either. I ran coolant through it as if it was a dehydrated marathon runner and drove with the heat on full blast even in summer so as to keep the temp and engine from overheating. All those earlier memories of riding around with you and grandma, sister, the dog, and I in the back. Trips to and from the beach, wet and sandy on that bench seat with the windows down as we drove home through Malibu Canyon. That L-shaped stick to held the liftgate, the droopy detached fabric of the cabin roof, the slight scent of grandma’s perfume that lingered long after I had been driving it. I’m not sure I ever told you thank you, for that gift, I was a teenager then, so here it is now, all these years later.
Thankyou for supporting my college education, that first significant monetary gift, another shameful admission I’m making. You asked me once, right before I graduated—how’s my money?—it struck me so deeply, that you called it yours. I always associated the money with grandma, since she seemed to manage it, and she did the research in choosing which bank and took me with her to set up the CD. And it stung my heart a bit, because I didn’t want to admit to you that I had spent it, that I had cashed it out. I didn’t want to disappoint you, there was so much internal shame I wasn’t able to make enough money between all my jobs, and that I didn’t understand how financial aid worked, and that I was terrified of student loans, so when in my junior year I didn’t have enough money saved up from the summer to pay for my semester, I cashed out part of the CD, took the hit on interest, paid the fine. And then did it again the next semester and the final one too. I probably could have asked for money, but I had internalized so much trauma around asking or needing anything from anyone, from hearing all the fighting at our house about the scarcity of money, that I didn’t know or think I was allowed to. Could you tell that I had lied.
Thismorning, while I layed in bed, I cried about how our last couple of years together were. How sorry I am that I still don’t think I actually knew you, how mad I am that there were so few at your rosary service and funeral after all the lighthearted joy you brought everyone, that I didn’t know how to truly help you, and felt inadequate and so much shame for leaving you in the full care facility. Especially because on that last visit, when I took you out to get your haircut and your nails cared for, and you didn’t want to go to get a steak for lunch, I knew, it was clear, at some level, that you were done, that you were just waiting, and it wasn’t going to be long. And though I called, I couldn’t and didn’t want to visit anymore, and it was the longest two months. I had felt the shift in energy on that beautiful easter morning before I got that call that sent me crumpled into the floor in the kitchen out of relief and dense sadness.
Andas we drove I knew we would have to find you that damned suit. I knew it’s what you wanted to be buried in when sister said you wanted to know where it was, so I said it was in Colorado with me. Though we all knew I had so haphazardly donated it with so many of your other clothes and things to Goodwill. I hated packing your apartment up, even though when we found Beehive I was so caught up in how it seemed to align with what I was reading in Atul Gawande’s, Being Mortal; though we skipped the part where I ask you what you wanted, and instead matched the care facility to the standards he recommended. I was excited that they let the employees bring their children to work.
Doyou remember the cutest littlest one, who carried the Febreze can around and sprayed it in her mouth? I’m mortified to think of the esophageal cancer she’ll have one day. And my limerence around the open format layout, home-style cooking, medication and 24 hour care distorted so much what your actual experience was there. So to clean out your room after your death was depressing. To find random pairs of tighty-whiteys in your closet for which I knew you never wore, always a boxer man. I can still recall them hanging on the dryer line in the garage of the house on Poppy. And how they carelessly shrank your wool sweaters, and someone else’s box of important paperwork was shoved in the back of the closet, and that of course as I warned, the $500 cash that you insisted on having on person was missing.
AndI could viscerally feel how it must have been to live in a place where you had no privacy and therefore no sense of safety and therefore lost your individuality and sovereignty. It is one of my biggest regrets in life that I didn’t just kidnap you and move you to Parker with us. But I was young and trying to find the balance between feeling a duty to care for you, and trying to establish my own life, maintain my own sense of privacy. All while holding everyone else’s opinions of how and what to do, those who refused and didn’t want to be involved and didn’t visit you, in my head and in my heart.
Itried, I did, I even cut your toenails that one night, because someone had told me that her biggest regret was refusing to do the same for their mother before she died, because she was grossed out by the idea of it. And so I sat on the floor, and you in that brown, lazy-boy recliner that we had bought a few months earlier, after your fall, when we needed to upgrade the old worn out one, to something that was motorized and could lift you to stand. And I’m pretty sure you peed on at least one of the ones that you tried out when we were in the store. I can’t remember now if you were meant to be wearing depends and you just hadn’t put them on, or if they were so saturated and I just didn’t know and at that point it was far too late.
Yourfeet were in fact disgusting. Until the case worker told me that one of the hospice nurses reported that your nails needed to be trimmed, I assumed it was something they would take care of, but apparently there’s a liability risk so they don’t, and I did. Your nails reminded me of Grandpa Norman’s, and how gross his sheets were with skin flakes, and his room so dark and dank with the smell of brandy and old man. At least you smelled clean, and it was tough to cut those thick nails, and filing them caused a scent of corn flakes, like the paws of dogs. Somehow I hoped that it made you feel better, that although we had few words to say to each other, that it connected us at some level, that you understood through that action all my gratitude for what you provided in my life.
Theregret that builds in my throat and rises in my stomach because I chose to go to that wedding instead of taking you home from the rehabilitation center after your first fall, remains highly acidic. I didn’t enjoy myself, if that makes it any better, it didn’t for me, and it still doesn’t. I almost flew back to you, as soon as we arrived at our friend’s place, where upstairs, in the heat of a Boise summer I cried about being there. There’s this shame I hold for having the bus driver pick you up and take you home to your apartment. He liked you dearly, and was the only one from the complex who came to your funeral, though you had made many friends, and though they circled like vultures when we moved you out to the full care facility, they must have been distracted by the view from your vacant room.
Wereyou impressed I was able to find you that same suit that you loved? I had guessed you bought it at Macy’s but turns out it was from Penny’s. You looked handsome and they even cut and did your hair better than it had looked in months. Another regret of mine, that when I took you to the salon I didn’t show you a picture of how you liked your hair and just let them do whatever, and you never protested. We couldn’t find shoes in your size so I bought them larger, and the funeral home thanked me, because it turns out feet swell when you’re dead. Not that any of us saw your shoes, with just a half-open casket. Muy guapo!
Thismorning while lying in bed, I washed my soul with tears for you and for me, and then I got up, and sat next to the crib you built for me, and typed this up. Mom can’t seem to get rid of it, and I have ideas on how to upcycle it. It takes up space, physically, while your memory takes up space, emotionally, as within so without. “Birth is nothing but our death begun”, Edward Young proclaims, and so I sit pleasurably by the crib and return again. Did you like how I repurposed the credenza you and grandma and dad carved? All I really liked about it was the carvings, so I took the doors and the knobs and the handles. And I use mine as an altar, and I burned a beautiful poem into the one for sister as a housewarming gift, so she too can have a piece of you, and grandma and dad; a portal for you to visit her anytime – enjoy Australia! I miss you, I love you, I hope you enjoyed the flowers I left on the grave last week, and that a bubble or two that I blew