Funereal

12/3/2020

I’ve been imagining his death now for years. The day of… and the days and nights that follow.

At first it was just tame thoughts of funerals and memorial soundtracks. Then wakes and ovens. Soon the winds of the disease got wild and visions of me and my cubs packing duffels in the night and running west emerged.

The funeral albatross was tossed, no need to stand witness with people who have been awol in this dark night, his mother and brother cut loose with that stinking bird. The bravest thing for me and my child witnesses was to run.

But a real part of me also feared I would just drop from the lost momentum of caregiving, crawl into bed, and weep and sleep until I remembered I was a woman and mother. I’ve done it before and could again.

Worse still, a scene of total depravity where I become my father and reinvent myself as an obsessive executrix, clinging to the phone and file cabinet for grief support. Just like me, like him, like all the times before.

But in this gentle pause, you’ve emerged, my new favorite variable.

And now I’m fussing with where to place you on the vision board. Will I cry and beg for you to materialize and hold me. Will I curse you for some slight, amplified in the bright hot portal of death and retreat.

Will I push pause on us until my feet are under me, ready to learn to walk again. Will I take those first steps heavy into your arms. How will I curate this pain that must be felt. How will you bend towards me in that time, near or far, silent or thrumming with words.

It feels like something to plan, like you would a first date or a birth of sorts. Or maybe a getaway plan after a bank heist. Nothing anyone would want to leave to chance. But quite possibly it’s time to breathe and let go. Fate has brought us safe this far and fate will lead us home.