dead people everywhere

 I am doing my morning walk through the cemetary and I see Joy Berry's grave sideways as I stoop and drink from the water faucet, 1909 - 2009, a hundred years, good for you, Joy, whoever you are, lucky girl. I read the obituaries in the newspaper, people older and younger than my mother, and I go to an Asian restaurant and am surrounded by 95-year-old healthy women having lunch with their daughters.

I have  a doctor's appointment this morning in a building next to the hospital where my mother died a year ago.  I park in the same spot, view the same water-starved bushes, walk the same walk as I did waiting for her to die.

It has been a year since I spoke to my mother.  That is a significant amount of time but I remember those last days with complete clarity.  The call came right after midnight, my brother at the hospital, her shrunken, bruised body had finally let go.  My husband and I racing through the hot July streets, I wanted to be there while she was still warm, still looking like life and talk to her one more time.

 

I can't say my grief  has lessened. The confusion is less prevalent, the heaviness remains and I haven't had a day when I could honestly say, I am joyful.   Whenever I approach my father's house I am slugged in the gut, she will not be there. I do not want to be in her house by myself. She comes at me in waves and I need to be outside.  My father has tucked aways keepsakes, a funny little vase with a cracked face.  She put  toothbrushes in it but Sonny decided he preferred a regular kitchen glass and now the vase sits on the closet shelf.  My fingers run over the painted surface and there is that familiar crazy tug in my belly.

Sometimes I look above my oak tree to the blueness and my sadness takes me strongly.  Most of the time I get myself back up and find something productive to do.  She would want that.

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