Thursday, March 02, 2006

Softly I lay my right hand upon you…

My Ho just returned from Fort Lauderdale, where he attended his mother’s funeral on Sunday. Her passing wasn’t exactly unexpected, but one can never be totally prepared for a loss on that level. As I said when my Grandma was dying, “You can know the train is coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take when it hits you.”

I wasn’t able to go with him to Florida, so I sent flowers, which seems like such a useless, pointless thing when I so very much want to be able to, I don't know, make it less hard for him, somehow. Especially when sending flowers nowadays takes all of about seven minutes with the Internet and a credit card. But I did make sure to choose an arrangement that was cheerful and pretty and didn't look like funeral flowers. No spider mums, no gladiolas. That's something, I guess.

The thing is, I’m really, really sad that I never got to meet her.

The funeral part, at least, is in a way kind of nice in that you’re with family, many of whom you haven’t seen in a while, and even though they make you crazy and cause you to fall back into behavior patterns you thought you had outgrown when you were twelve, they’re there for you and for each other, and they’re all sad too. And they get it.

But now that part is over and he and his sister are left with the horrible detail work of canceling their mom’s credit cards and working with lawyers and sorting through the artifacts of her life, and all of that just sucks, any way you slice it.

So please, send some good vibes in his direction.

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you,
You are to die—let others tell you what they please, I cannot
prevaricate,
I am exact and merciless, but I love you—there is no escape
for you.

Softly I lay my right hand upon you, you just feel it,
I do not argue, I bend my head close and half envelop it,
I sit quietly by, I remain faithful,
I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,
I absolve you from all except yourself spiritual bodily, that is
eternal,
you yourself will surely escape,
The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.

The sun burst through in unlooked for directions,
Strong thoughts fill you and confidence, you smile,
You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,
You do not see the medicines, you do not mind the weeping
friends,
I am with you,
I exclude others from you, there is nothing to be
commiserated,
I do not commiserate, I congratulate you.

—Walt Whitman

6 comments:

JeepGirl said...

Sorry to hear, hope all goes smoothly in the final days.

Thoughts and prayers.

rob said...

Many good vibes, to his, his'n and yours.

Sidenote: To One Shortly... is the creepiest poem ever written.

Prego said...

sorry to hear about ho's mom. it took me four years to be able to reminisce about mine without having tears well up. to make matters worse, when the o-dog was three years old, it dawned on him that we kept going to the cemetery to 'see' abuela, but she 'never came down.' he then started to cry often, saying that he wanted me to make him a super cape to go up there to get her.

now, it makes me feel good when he says it.

i still get that little throat thing.

TwinsGoddess said...

Oy, Prego, you're killin' me with that cape thing...

Joe said...

Very, very sorry to hear about this.

Doc Nebula said...

Hey, this is Highlander, bf to Supergirlfriend, who comments on this blog occasionally. She’s going through a maxi-stress couple of days at the moment and could really use people’s support. If you could drop by and leave a few comments at her blog (theoralreport.blogspot.com) I know I’d appreciate it and I think she would too. Don’t tell her I sent you. I’d have put this in an email, but couldn’t find your addy.