DAY ONE.

My dear mother how have you been keeping? I have been meaning to write to you almost as soon as you left but I decided to wait at least a week to give you time to meet and greet and to grow accustomed to your new abode. To my amazement, I could not pick up a pen until now. It has been a most unusual three months. So much has transpired since you left and I have much to tell you and you know me well, that I am not going to leave anything out. You taught me to give the bitter and the sweet.

How was the journey? Did you have company or did you have to travel alone? Were you very frightened mama? I know we went over so much before you left regarding this aspect of the trip but what would we know of the details considering that neither of us had gone that way before. All we could do is speculate and try to be prepared in the best way possible given what our religion taught us. We would have to exercise faith.

 

The first day that you left was quite an eventful one for me. I received such a shock when I noted beyond any doubt that you were truly gone. I stood by your bedside in the wee hours of the morning in complete silence looking at your body so stately reposed in the semi recumbent position that I had helped you into a few hours before. You looked so peaceful as if you were sleeping, and from the expression on your face, I realized that you were mildly surprised in that final moment. A surprised, but yet assured expression. I shall never forget that particular scene until I see you again and replace it with your loveliness. It will remain my most riveting imagery of you. I felt naked and alone and the moment was surreal. I wasn’t sure of anything.

 

You were still so warm and I did not like the idea that soon that lively warmth would decrease to an inanimate chill, but let me not digress. Standing there confused and not knowing where to start although you and I had gone through our drill so many times, I realized in an inexplicable way that your body was empty. I was so close to screaming like a fool, giving way to the horrible reality that had planted itself before me. You had left your body and only the essence of your last emotion was now on your face, which in a few short hours, would be replaced by the grimness of something, alien and all too treacherous to ponder.

 

The folks from the funeral home took you about two hours afterward and in another two hours after that, I held your face between my hands for the last time before they wheeled you away to the preparation room. You were still remarkably warm as I had insisted on bundling a thick blanket over you and had put a clean, thick pair of socks on your tender feet. I never got the socks or your nightdress back; I wonder what became of them? Incinerated perhaps, with your other matters. Fire, the ultimate purge I suppose.

You would have liked Carrie. That is the name of the person who prepared your body. She was so attentive to all our wishes and carried out all our instructions to the letter. Well mother the next three hours was when your body was prepared for burial. Because I know you would have been interested to know the process, I made a detailed enquiry of the whole process quite some time before, much to the alarm and surprise of Carrie as she said she never had a client show any interest in that part of the affairs. Well, she never met us huh? She told me that she was going to use a number 24 index embalming fluid on you, as based on your body and how you looked; number 24 seemed to be the choice based on the information I gave her regarding your illness et al.

She ought to know, this was indeed her expertise.

Mother, she emptied out all your body fluids through a process that I shall not go into at this time. No one else will enjoy reading such a report, should this letter fall into their hands. But it is enough to let you know that your stomach as well as your alimentary system was evacuated and your venous system was filled with this number 24 fluid, which according to Carrie worked like a charm as your features were not bloated nor did you look unnatural.

 Mother, I beg to disagree with her because after she had done that, the following day, which was Sunday, I could not bear it any longer and asked her if I could see you even though she had not completed the preparations. She agreed to let Stephanie and myself look at your face only. Well what a surprise I received. I had such a difficult time trying to appreciate what I saw. You now looked inanimate. Truly, you were not bloated nor were your features distorted but a distinct change had come over your face. There was no doubt in my mind at that time that what I was looking at had nothing to do with you. I cannot put a finger on what I want to say but it was as if I did not recognize you. I knew it was you from the general outline of your face but your intrinsic nature was gone. Then when I touched you, again I was surprised.

 However, let me not digress. After you left me standing by your bed feeling like an idiot. I stared into space for perhaps fifteen minutes or so completely alone and in a   silence where nothing moved, it was as if time stood still. The still of the morning lent itself to the feeling of utter loss and a grief I could not utter. I had no emotions, as somehow I could not find myself. Somewhere in the moment when heaven and earth communed, I drifted as if I wanted to enter the zone with you, and yet I knew that I was outranked and unwanted in so exquisite a place.   I imagined you looking at me wanting to go as you realized that this moment that we had discussed so many times before had finally come. It was at this time we truly parted company.

 Mother I let your hand go and imagined you walking or floating away, I have no idea what you can do at present. Your capabilities must be magnificent now, because in this life you were so astoundingly capable. What will I do without my wellspring of information and assurance? It is not even a question, but rather, that quite a disaster had occurred.

 Suddenly I heard myself speaking to me as only I could hear; like a still small voice reminding me that this is life, I am alive, I had a duty to perform, and that I should get on with it. Dragged back into reality by life itself, again I found that I was confused and about to fall apart. Believe it or not Ma, I looked you in the face and asked you,

“Ma, what am I supposed to do first, please tell me as I am confused and forgot all the things we rehearsed”?

What a slacker I was eh? Can you believe I would have been capable of such nonsense? You had not even gone fifteen minutes and I had become an utter fool. To your credit, even in transition you helped me, for suddenly I remembered my lines and picked up the phone and rang the doctor and then the police. After I hung up the phone I was again tempted to drift, instead I knelt by the bed and put my head on your bosom for one last time. A place I had gone to so often. You still smelled so fresh and sweet from the fragrant rose bath I had given you earlier, your nails clipped and filed and your hair in the bun I had made, no crazy ‘Don King’.

 Sadly you could not place your arms around me as you would have normally done and would ask of me, “So what you want now?’ as you chuckled and gave me that half smile of yours, your very handsome face alive with mischief and wit. I had so many questions then mama, so many, that even now as I write I am choked with emotions as I cannot hear your voice to tell me what I want to know.

 Did you know that we talked too much? I think we talked more than the law allowed and as for the laughing at the nonsense jokes and then the moments when we discussed the political agenda and the day’s events. Speaking of which, the war in Iraq has gotten from very bad to worse Ma, and the ‘Bushman’ is getting so much heat; as well as he is aging. This business of being President is quite a hazard in itself. More anon.

 We pondered so many philosophical topics, and the many hours we engaged in the arts, either listening to arrangements or debating the music of Mr. Beethoven in comparison to Mr. Mozart whom I favored greatly but could not resist crying when Beethoven wove his magic over me. We marveled at Seiji Ozawa’s hairstyle as he conducted the Boston Symphony. In those moments, you would look at me sideways and hinted that I was menopausal as you laughed when I cried because the music overwhelmed me. You knew that my hormones were not a factor for you yourself were awed.

 We had so many conversations mama and then the inevitable moment would come when we would have a grand flaming argument and I would storm off to fume in my apartment, and you would find some foolish reason to ring me and I would come back to see you smirking and trying to look insulted.

 I still have the picture you drew of me after one such blow up. You called me on the telephone and I came back all puffed up and sullen and you handed me a folded note and when I opened it what I saw had me wheezing with laughter.

You had drawn something that looked very alike an insect with a mop of hair, stick feet and hands and had entitled it ‘my beloved daughter.’ I laughed so much at the stupid thing you had drawn, which had no representation of me in anyway shape or form, and to get even with you I flipped the paper over and right there before you, I drew you in similar fashion but with big boobs and your Don King hair do which you had at the time. I titled it ‘my mother’.

When I handed it to you, I thought you would have died from laughing. You carefully folded the paper and put it under a book on your night table. After that, when ever you saw me sad or looking blah, you would take it out and force me to look at it until I laughed. Then you would cajole my current dilemma from my heart and somehow in a few sentences, a story, or a quotation from the Bible, you’d solve my problem and comfort me all in one swoop.

 

The day after you left, I took the drawing out and placed it on my night table. Having it is worth a thousand years of joy and only seeing you again could ever be a substitute for it. I hope I never lose it mama, it has been at least 10 years or so that we have had it as a significant treasure between us. Thank you for leaving me something so wonderful.

My next and most dreaded move was to start waking the household one by one, but before I started on that, I made a very difficult telephone call. I called Stephanie to tell her you had left. How I dreaded calling your youngest with such news. She had been with us earlier, and I told her to go home to her husband, that I would call her should anything change. I knew that somewhere before the dawn that I was going to call her because I did see changes, and I was painfully aware of you slipping so quietly away from us.

 I had heard the water lapping as it smoothed the sides of the boat that came to fetch you. It docked late on Friday February 17 and the bearers had stood silently into the soft silence of the following morning, when you stepped from the shores of this life into the boat and they shoved off carrying their precious treasure into Paradise. I tried to picture the boat. Was it a simple Arawak canoe hewn from a single tree and polished with the passage of time? Was it a Skiff with just enough room for the guides? Or was it an Egyptian Funerary barge of new cedar with your name carved on the helm? What was your choice? I am just curious.

 Did you sing? You so loved to sing. We both did, even though between us we could not make a decent soprano, nevertheless, that never stopped us from singing to each other, much to the grief of the rest of the household. I suppose in the first hour of your journey you may have wept at having to leave us but as you sailed on and saw such glorious sights you began to feel so much joy that it would have been absolutely impossible to be sad. You perhaps leaned over the side of the boat and trailed your long fingers into the water splashing it on your face as you admired the things below the clear water that provided a mirror between the heaven and the earth.

 Did you see me as I guided pops into the room to tell him what had happened? Did you see him touching you in disbelief as he sat down on the chair next to the bed? Oh my mother it was such a ghastly Saturday morning. The phone calls were not easy to make, I tried to find palatable words to tell the news to Marcia when I rang her in Kosovo. She greeted me so cheerfully and then I burst her bubble with the disaster.

She was so shocked that she lost her usual pristine composure and said the silliest thing. “How could that be?” she asked me as her voice cracked with the misery that she was thousands of miles away.

I hung up the phone for I could not respond. What was I going to tell her when I couldn’t even grasp the moment? If only you could have been there to help me sort things out, half the battle would have been won. But how could you be there, this after all was your day to shine and I was the soldier on duty. I had trained so long and hard in your company this was the day, and going forward, that I would show just how well I had understood my lessons and how hardy yet resilient I had become. Your slippers are now empty but can I wear them mother? It has been three months now and I have not yet slipped my feet into them. We have touched not one item of your possessions. The whole idea just seems so presumptuous though we know it to be another way to hold on to you. Metaphorically, though I am now the incumbent Matriarch, I know that I shall never fill your shoes.

 

 

 LATE SATURDAY.

The hours past have been strange mama. The household is in shock and certain disbelief although we should have been well prepared. It is now painfully obvious that this is not something one can be emotionally prepared for. For the life of me Ma, I am a wreck when I should be more alert. When I stood by the gurney on which you lay at the funeral parlor, you still seemed asleep, surprisingly soft, and still very flexible. It seemed that you were taking your time with rigor mortis to accommodate me.

In the afternoon, the trip to the cemetery to sign the papers for your interment was one of mixed emotions, as inside the cemetery proved a virtual Eden, sitting squarely in the middle of the Bronx. I could hardly contain my joy when I saw how delightful the setting was and was quite pleased that I had chosen, with your approval of course, The Woodlawn Cemetery. My love affair with the cemetery has been long standing, and I have been the butt of a joke in the family. Can you recall years ago, once when we were driving past the cemetery and I saw the cut stone house along East 233 Street and chortled with delight as to the fine structure it was, and how I would like to purchase it.

My choice of real estate was met with peals of laughter from you and my siblings, who could not wait to get home to announce to our father that I wished to purchase the house in the cemetery. How could I know that it was a part of the cemetery? I was not living in New York at the time and was not up to date on the various landmarks. I have always loved that place based on what I could see peering in through the trees. There I was today, inside and amidst the acres of greenery and lush foliage and I was redolent with joy. There was no finer place for you to be interred.

 

We picked a spot on a rising with a great view, which I am still enjoying each time I visit the gravesite. Back at the house our friends awaited our return, and to my surprise, had filled the dining room and kitchen with so much food, my head spun with confusion. There was an alarming amount of comfort food and beverages and enormous mounds of fruits to feed a garrison. The aroma from the fruits reminded me of my childhood when we used to pick loads of guava and plums to make jams or fruit drinks. I looked around at everything and wondered silently who was going to eat all of them and so as to occupy myself I spent sometime taking the fruits from the baskets they came in and making several other arrangements Martha Stewart or Colin Cowley would be proud of.

 I did not have an appetite and the beautiful food items, various snacks had no appeal to me, and I wanted nothing to do with them except to admire the mix of colors and shapes. Moreover, every time some one tried to make me eat I excused myself, claiming that I had a matter to attend. Truth is I had no pressing matters for I had long prepared the entire funeral proceedings so it was a matter of simply making telephone calls to your friends and relatives who lived abroad and other distant places and sending bulk emails. I remember a time when I hated the dawn of the computer as it wended its way into our homes and began to append itself to people like another limb. Today it seems to have its merits; though I still hold it suspect as ‘that’ big brother that Mr. Orwell so ominously described.

 

Mama I got so much opposition because I planned the funeral for Wednesday. Why would I want to go on until the weekend? I had made every single arrangement when you were still here with us so that when you left I would just pick the first available day on the church calendar and move along. I had the option of Monday but thought I was being gracious to make it Wednesday. I daresay some of the folks were not amused with me, but I shouldered my responsibility and stood my ground. Wednesday it would be. I know that you would have approved of my timing and frankly, if you had anything to do with it, it would have been the next day after your passing. Therefore, stiff upper lip it was. And this too shall pass, was my chant. My one regret was that my decision ruled out the folks from Jamaica getting a flight out in a timely fashion. I am speaking expressly of Lenny and Prim who wanted to attend.

 Sleep is not an option Ma; I am not able to sleep. It seems as if I am stuck at Saturday morning standing by your bed. You have no idea how disturbing it was to watch your body taken from the house. I had such a hard time zipping up the body bag to cover your face. Twice I stopped the attendants from doing it. I suppose they understood what my issues were and were most patient with me. But Mama, it had not yet sunk into my consciousness that you had left and to zip that bag over your face seemed so unsynchronized with life.

It did not seem that you should even be on the lifter that the attendants brought. How could you be on such a thing? That was for dead people. At one point, I was even wondering if I had made an error in judgment and you were only in a coma and I was misleading everyone. I looked at your face with a vain hope of a coma and knew that I had made no mistake. I was willing to be called a fool, should I see a flicker of your eyelid. I was clutching at straws. There was a difference in your image. Death had impounded your body and his faint gray mist was creeping over your visage in slow motion. It was not that I was unfamiliar with death, for I had seen so many people during death and dying when I practiced as a nurse and was quite intimate with the process and finality. But it didn’t belong with you.

 Were you holding back the descending mist for as long as you could to make it pleasant for me? Thank you mother, for it did help enormously when Stephanie and Phil came and I took her to the funeral home to see you as you were, still warm and peaceful. I cannot tell you how grateful we were to Carrie the funeral director for unzipping that body bag before we arrived and rolling it back so that it was not visible to us. It was just as if you were lying on a hospital gurney under your blanket.

There at that lonesome place in the dimly lit corridor, was to be the last time we would see you as our mother in flesh and blood and I ached so badly but could not find a mortal sound to make. We walked away and went back home to the rest of the family.

 Where were you that entire time mother? Were you aloft somewhere in the room watching me telling the men how to lift you and how not to touch you until I had carefully wrapped the sheet around you and placed a special cloth over your face? Did you see me do that Ma? Did you hear me telling you everything that I was doing as I did it? It was what we had planned Mama and I did the things exactly as we discussed months before.Every member of the family was in the living room in shocked silence except for Matthew who was crying out aloud. I could not stop to comfort him as I had my duties to attend, and even so what could I find to tell him? Over the three years and a half that you were ill, I had been giving him talks and tips regarding your illness and upcoming departure. This was something he would have to face on his own. I felt sorry for him and Amber but I was also having the same issues for as old as I am this was the first time I had encountered such a disruption in my life.

 As the day ended, I wondered how we were going to settle down and who would actually sleep. Your son fell completely apart and we placed him on ‘nervous breakdown watch’. He was bad Mama but is getting a bit better as the days creep along. Phil had assigned himself the job of ‘house control’ and arranged the disbursement of funds we would need for the financial transactions the next day. Carrie told us we could make the payment the day of the funeral but we just wanted to be done with it. It was already so dreadful that you were no longer with us, discussing money and writing checks was not an appealing activity.

 So it became Saturday night and I took the longest shower ever perhaps in the hope of washing away my cares. Needless to say that didn’t happen. I went on the bed, pulled up my covers, and watched the night descend like a thick blanket over me to suffocate me as my senses fought the opiate it offered me. My body wanted to sleep but my mind would not bend. So the night taught me its bitter lessons.

Ma, do you remember the poem by Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale?” It says, “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, or emptied some dull opiate to the drains” blah blah blah?

 Can you recall it ma? It came to mind the morning after that first night without you. Do you remember when I was at school and had memorized it and you were amazed that I could say it with all the emphasis and pathos that it evoked? Do you ma? You were so proud of me and I was such a show off. I knew that I had no difficulty recalling stuff as I had a natural ability to do things like that. It cost me nothing. Back then I did not know that I was twice blest, I in my childlike state thought I had done it all.   In my youth it seems I had an attraction for Keats, for in the still of the night another of his poems flashed before my eyes; “Sonnet to sleep” That one says,

“O soft embalmer of the still midnight,

shutting with careful fingers and benign our gloom-pleased eyes,

embowered from the light, enshaded in forgetfulness divine;

O soothest sleep, if so it please thee, in midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes, or wait the amen ere thy poppy throws around my bed its lulling charities.

Then save me or the passed day will shine upon my pillow,

breeding many woes: save me from curious conscience,

that still hoards its strength for darkness,

burrowing like the mole; turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,

and seal the hushed casket of my soul.”

 Oh mother, the whole thing rushed back to my mind to flood my senses and made me so much more melancholy than I already was. That first line, “O soft embalmer of the still midnight”

Such a drama queen aren’t I ma? I laugh, for I can hear you saying in past times when you thought me mad, “Don’t go to the window and make the neighbors see you, this can’t get out” I was your “mad mulatto”. You were so funny Mama and so very quick on the draw no matter where I dragged our conversations, you were there with me, wit for wit refusing to quit even when I deliberately dragged you out of your range just so that I could gloat. Quite a waste of time that was, for you knew just when to lower the boom much to my chagrin. So Sunday brought the sun and found me quite a zombie. I became silent and unwilling to communicate and unwilling to accept my lot.

 DAY TWO.

 Sunday found me numb and dull Ma. I had become quite irritable and did not wish to have any conversation. It was all I could do to remain civil. Why was I withdrawing? It was so bad that I disturbed Stephanie to the point of tears as she I now know, processed her anxieties by talking and hugging and huddling. I on the other end of the spectrum just wanted to be left alone with my thoughts. So it appeared as if I was cold and unfeeling and I upset her Ma very badly. Then had to apologize, explain the whole nine yards about myself. God almighty! It was such a trial for me. I felt that I had wronged myself by explaining my actions. No wonder people drink! Such escape could not be mine for I controlled my emotions and took my integrity as dogma. Such a fool I am when the world couldn’t care less if I am sober. Nevertheless I was already too set in my thinking.

 Why couldn’t I be free to be myself like everyone else was doing? Why do I always have to be the one to make the sacrifice? You have left me with quite a task it seems, especially how you made me promise to be patient with my siblings, your children. Why did you not ask them to be patient with me? Or did you? It just appears that from childhood you picked me to be the torchbearer. I used to hate it when your children would get out of step and you would have the nerve to ask me why they misbehaved. How am I supposed to know that? And why did you always tell me to set the example for them? Why? I was not much older than them, why couldn’t they do as they were told? Anyway, all that is water under the bridge now. We have come of age and made you and our father proud. As you would so often say we never made your knuckles turn white. That would have to be some almighty stress seeing that you were so ebony.

 Phillip your son curled himself into the fetal position all day on Sunday and Matthew locked himself in his room while Amber was in Las Vegas trying to get a flight in. You should know by now that she is presently attending the University of Las Vegas doing the second half of her degree program. When she was leaving in January for school, she came and sat by your bed for over an hour and told you all about her plans for school and her grand idea to carry a double major. She is so ambitious and hard working and determined to make her goals. By the way Ma, that little matter of her heart murmur has resurfaced, but she is in the care of a very eminent Cardiologist.

 For most of the day we just sat around in a daze for there wasn’t much to do but wait for the day of the funeral. Stephanie tried to get us to eat, and may have succeeded with some but lost the battle with me. Even pops refused his food. Can you believe that Ma? We made a corny joke that fell very flat, that you would have been pleased to hear him say no thank you to donuts and cookies. He was not to be amused. His face is set on blank and it’s starting to trouble me. You know him as well as I do. It was well that I had put everything in place sometime before, so there was no need to be chasing shadows and getting frustrated. It was the single thing I was proud of because I had absolutely not one scintilla of desire to do a darn thing. It’s a good thing I had prepared or else you perhaps wouldn’t be laid to rest till late November or so. That shouldn’t amuse you. I am smiling Ma, but my mind is a silent place as if some one has pulled out my main plug.

 Where did Phillip get the idea that you wished cremation? On so many occasions when we met to discuss your posthumous plans you were decidedly clear as to how your remains were to be disposed and you forbade us to cremate you; although we would kid you that it would be so much cheaper and we could use the balance of funds for a cruise. He came to ask me yesterday why we had purchased a double gravesite instead of a section in the crypt. Ma, was he not listening when you were speaking? Clearly not. Please make this one go away, for all I was able to say to him was, “this is what she wanted, you are confused.” This is why I always insisted that everyone sat in at these discussions, because what if I was the only one that heard your words? Granted that none of the meetings ended with everyone as they all would cleverly excuse themselves at some point and we two would be left to argue how silly you would look in a hat in the coffin.

 We had to make one more trip to the funeral parlor to see you in the dress you had selected for your burial. Why did you pick that dress? It wasn’t my choice but like you said you never wore it and so it would do just fine. By the way I never did the hat thing and it was good that we scrapped that idea as your hair looked splendid the way Carrie fixed it. The hat madam would have made you look so over done. You looked like you were on your way to a function {a facsimile of my mother; more like one of Madame Tussauds wax replicas.} I began to disassociate myself with what I was seeing in the coffin. Speaking of which, you would have liked it. Of course it was the polished pine as you wished. No outrageously carved coffin with the fanciful and flamboyant handles and carvings. We were both opposed to such needless demonstrations.

 After we left the building, Stephanie and I sat for a while in the car in utter disbelief of the past day. We found ourselves in an alien environment, which had rules we didn’t quite comprehend and had no idea how to accommodate them. We were only sure of one thing.   If you were really dead, then you wouldn’t be coming back. Also if Carrie truly pumped gallons of embalming fluid in your venous system you were now really dead if you were not before, and you were never going to wake up. Both situations were frightening for the one thing they had in common was a petrified finality. A true exit, the end; no more, outside the laws of a tangible reality. You had reverted to that energy discussed in the science of quantum Physics, infinite, unseen yet relative. Let me stop this mama as I think by now you are rolling your eyes for you know where my thoughts have now led off and we were never able in the past to have a sane discussion on evolution or creation that ended well. So here I bow, as I cannot have such a discussion by myself. As church lady would chortle, “Not prudent”

 We couldn’t make enquiries into the afterlife and the likelihood of the deceased bringing back the good or bad news is downright impossible. Sure we had our ghost stories and other unexplainable things, but we knew of no instance when such a thing ever happened and was documented. We sat there in my car staring at the gray building that was providing accommodation for you. Mother, bereft is an inadequate word to express our feelings then. I was lost and confused and I am certain that Stephanie felt the same way. It was cold and we started to feel the draft so I started the engine and drove back to the house in silence.

 Stephanie cried all the way home. Where were my tears and what was that pain in my chest and why every few seconds or so I’d feel like something was released in my belly and then I’d have a rush of anxiety. Ma, I knew what the rush was and I couldn’t stop it happening and I couldn’t make myself feel better. The road ahead seems so long and dark mama. Too much adrenaline in the system is dangerous Mama, and here comes another load.

 May 28, 2006.

Quite a long letter eh ma? Well so much to tell you lady, it has been three months already. Your husband, who is my father, has a grand fixation with the cemetery while I on the other hand have mixed emotions. I enjoy going there because of the flora and fauna, but I cannot bear the gravesite with your name glaring back at me from a concrete headstone. I have a morbid curiosity to know what you look like at this time as Carrie told me that you could still look presentable even after a year. No, don’t worry, I am ‘not gonna do it, not prudent’. I am laughing; do you remember Dana Carvey on Saturday night live?

Ma, I believe I have left Carrie disturbed with all my post mortem questions. I believe she suspects that I am going to get a shovel and in the dead of night go dig up your coffin to say hello. Ah well!! Perhaps she has good reason to think so as my misery and preoccupation with your departure must seem scary to her. Your good husband on the other hand sees these trips which he engineers, as an opportunity to carry on long conversations with you which is usually topped off with much weeping and wailing much to the distress of either Stephanie or myself as there are usually other folks there visiting their dead. Ma the first event with him was disturbing as well as quite hilarious. I found it funny and when I tell you I know you will too, Stephanie was not amused.

 It was two weeks or so after your burial and he asked her to take him to the grave, I was back at work by then, so she called me and asked if I thought it was advisable. I told her yes as I could hardly see any negative in that. Off they went Ma. Upon arrival they found another family on the hill gathered in a circle around a grave minding their business. So pops went to stand by your site, which still had the huge mound of soil and the many wreaths atop the mound. He started a dialogue, which Stephanie was willing to accommodate but as she listened, he started to say how he would soon be joining you and that you shouldn’t worry as he was coming home too. His voice at this time kept rising, which began to make Stephanie nervous so, she started to zip up his jacket while mentioning that the wind was picking up so they should leave.Your husband advised her that he wasn’t finished speaking and continued with the moaning which rose up into a full-fledged keening shriek.

Remember the other family on the hill, well, they all turned to look at pops for his outburst triggered some one in their group to keen as well, and it was back and forth they went. Pops and the other person, which Stephanie couldn’t tell if it was male or female, started a din of wails and moans which, prompted all the family members crying.

She had to forcibly drag him off the hill as he screamed “bye, bye, don’t worry I am coming to join you” as he wailed all the way to the car. When she called to tell me the events of the day, Ma, I must confess that I laughed till I cried. Of course Stephanie blamed me for this indiscretion, as it was with my approval that she took him. “Lana-Mei how could you do this to me?” she whispered into the phone. Eventually she saw the humor but told me point blank that the next trip would be on me, as she was not prepared to go through that again as it was too disturbing to watch him suffer like that and she didn’t like to hear him plan his exit.

Now Ma, can you imagine? Did you not tell this man not to do any such thing? How did you know he was capable of such a thing? The day I heard you telling him how to conduct himself when you had gone, I shook my head in disbelief at the conversation you were both having, as it did seem a bit vain to me that you would think he would make such a racket at your passing. Apparently, you knew your man. You most certainly did, and it wasn’t until it happened that I was reminded that in earlier years when I used to travel a lot between school and New York, every single time that I would be leaving to go back to school, father was the one who always cried as if I was going to prison for life; while you would shake your head and give him Kleenex. “Cecil, how many times have we done this? What is wrong with you?” His best performance though was when Phillip shipped out to Germany during the Vietnam period. Remember that? All of us cried then as we had a dread that he could have been maimed or even killed.

 His goodbye performances became a standing joke between us children, and we would do a count down as to when he would start keening. Bet you never knew we did that? Yes maam, your children were wicked. That was the red flag for this latter day performance.   After I got over the mirth, I was quite concerned at his statement about joining you. Not cool Mama, as there is nothing left inside me to go through another loss, acceptance and burial, not to mention the cost, {which we will address at another time. Criminal! The burial industry is.}  

No way in creation could any of us manage to do this any time soon, so I planned to give him a gentle talk on the subject of embracing life and paying attention to us. My Tia Maria is down to one bottle. Tsk!!

 My father is sad and silent. His days seem one long event and it’s a worry to me to watch him staring at the wall. Ma, that is not good and I have no words to comfort him. What can I tell him that would ease the pain of a lifetime? He has known you for so much of his youth and all of his adult life.   He loved only you mama, only you, as I am sure you know. I remember him as a much younger man, so rambunctious and full of laughter.

A young romantic buck so muscle bound and cutting quite a figure. I know you thrilled each time you looked at your caramel lover although you would never have admitted it then. It took so many years for me to get the courage to ask you some of your intimate details, much to your consternation as to why I was so inquisitive. But the two of you intrigued me. There you were so stoic and so lovely to look at while he was noisy and absolutely charming. His curly black hair always seemed as if he just came from the barber. I am sure you insisted that he kept it constantly groomed.

I could never understand how he was a master mechanic and I never saw traces of his trade on his clothes or under his nails. That was your doing I later discovered, as you would have him soak his nails at the end of each day as well as wear gloves while working. Quite modern you were in your thinking not to mention, dreadfully fastidious. All these traits are now my legacy if they can be classified as such. My friends call them idiosyncrasies, as mine are complex permutations of the ones you drilled into me. I still try to decide if that is good or bad. Touching other people and their things, and drinking from the same vessel…Jaysuss!! As the Irish would declare. I am quite a study.

 

                                           DAY THREE.

 Monday was a blur of pain and visits to the funeral chapel. Your process was completed but I still had issues as to how you looked now. Stephanie said you looked liked your self and so did Carrie based on the photograph we had given to her as a reference while she prepared your face.

I was not happy but knew when I was licked so I stopped commenting and allowed Carrie to do her job. So after I had inspected the coffin and placed the items that you were taking with you we left.

 Nothing spectacular happened on Monday except that I wished that I had gone with my original idea to have the funeral on Monday, for every hour that we waited seemed to be 24 hours. Back at the house we received telephone calls expressing sympathy for our loss and giving us encouragement to deal with the days ahead. We appreciated every one of the calls Ma, and there were hundreds. The telephone became a nightmare for me. You already knew how I hated to receive 3 calls back to back never mind one call a minute up to twelve midnight.

 My eyes began to feel pasty and unreal as if they were stuck to my forehead instead of in their sockets. I had an urge to take them off from my forehead and rest them somewhere cool, alas!

Sleep was not forthcoming as we were all past the point of relaxation. Being a zombie is quite pointless but it is the fate of all zombies to be pointless, unendingly so. I wished hard for February 2007. Another pointless thought for I can’t move time. This was the worst day, as there was absolutely nothing to do but sit around and receive friends who stopped by to sit with us. I was not interested in having any form of conversation, it was for me a most dreadful exercise, but I knew that I had to step into a place of authority and do what I had to do and be grateful to God for the goodness that was being poured on us at this time.

 The folks from my job sent me lovely flowers and many baskets of fruits and cards as well as emails. I was overwhelmed by their expressions of tenderness; but when I look back over the time that you were ill, I realize that they had become so familiar with your ups and downs it was as if they were on the journey with you through the reports I gave them regularly. So they took your passing as a loss. It’s been three months and they still ask me from time to time how the family is doing. Isn’t that nice Mama? But I have always maintained that my colleagues at the firm are a rare group of folks and I am happy to have met them.

 These are the same folks that I went through the debacle of the world trade center in 2001 with. It’s a day I know that gave you much anguish from the moment the first plane hit tower 1 until I managed to escape and you saw me face to face again. It’s a day I shall never forget. So many devastating things seem to have been dogging me as I was still reeling from my bankruptcy and loss in 2000, my having to go back to corporate America and in 2001 to be shadowed by a death I mercifully escaped. Then in 2002 on the anniversary of the world trade center calamity you fell deathly ill, which heralded the beginning of your end.

My world was in turmoil and your passing now seems to be the grand finale. What a ride eh Mama? Night approached us again and found me sitting in the bathroom crying. I was pathetic mama, crying as if my life was ending. In some ways my life did end for somehow it seemed I had become you.

 Long ago I read a book titled “My mother myself” by Nancy Friday. It was a work that explored the unique interaction between mother and daughter. Stephanie and I used to discuss the concepts of Ms. Friday’s work and roll our eyes at the idea of us becoming you. I for one struggled so hard after I read that book not to become you, to be my own woman. I fought against myself it seems for you are now gone and I find myself floundering with a sense of extreme loss as if something fundamental had been ripped from me leaving me incapable of even boiling an egg. Did we stay too long under your administrations? Can a person be over influenced? Ma, I know that I am asking you a lot of strange questions but I am trying valiantly to grasp what has happened this week. February 18^th 2006 was no ordinary day. It ought to be a day victorious if what we believe of our existence is true; instead I am despairing and morose. Were you the one holding me up and validating my thoughts and opinions? Why do I feel so confused and incredulous when I look at your empty bed?

 I once made a list of the ten women in the world that I most admired and thought I’d show you my list, but before coming to see you I made a duplicate list and placed your name at the bottom. After you had perused the list, without looking up you handed it to me and said, “girl go and reorganize this list” I tried to keep a straight face as I feigned confusion. “Ma, what is there to re organize?” was my response.   Without missing a beat you said, “Well I see Mrs. Thatcher at the top of the list, I suppose you are dining with her this Sunday because you will not be sitting at my table.”

We both dissolved in laughter and I handed you the real list. Your name was at the top of my list because you were my first hero, my first role model. Ma you set a standard in my life that I now have as a built in set of rules for living. By the way Ma, your Sunday dinners are severely missed. We have not gathered on a Sunday for over a year, as there was no joy in the dining room knowing that you were in your bedroom unable to join us. {Just so you know there will not be any turkey in this house come thanksgiving. The thing is too big, Ma I am just not cooking it. Gawd!! I know, I shall expect a beat down from the troops.}

 Then a day came when you couldn’t eat what we were eating and I wracked my mind to come up with a suitable diet for you. I know you didn’t appreciate those last meals that we had to puree. You obliged us by swallowing, but from the joyless expression on your face I knew you were not having a gourmand experience.

You were simply doing what we told you was best. You had become the child and your children were now your parents.

 Throughout the period of your illness we often spoke about how you were glad that I was capable of caring for you at home. That you were glad that I had studied nursing as you could rest easy knowing that if you became incompetent I would be able to act on your behalf.

Mama, it took quite some doing and quite some time before you truly became incompetent. I was so amazed at your will power and the strong body that you had. You had so many crises when even I thought you had arrived at that final frontier. But you rallied time after time and taught your family how to live, how to be strong, how to embrace life regardless of how your abilities were shrinking. So often I would call the clan together and the pastor because your condition had ebbed and you were looked so gray at the gills. So many times you rallied to my amazement that after a time I stopped calling the pastor to give you last rites, as I was now feeling foolish. How many times can a person be given last rites? You’d come out of what ever state you were in and I’d regale you of the past event and ask you what was that about; only for you to ask me “what was what about?” mama you were quite a force.

                                            TUESDAY FEBRUARY 21^ST.

 Today in essence was more or less a repeat of yesterday except that it is the day that the wake will be held. It was planned for evening. From 7pm to 9pm. Because the funeral home had a very spacious in house Chapel, and because I didn’t want to be dragging your remains around from there to the church and then back for the night, to be moved again the next morning to the church for the funeral service; I decided to host the wake in the Chapel. Dragging your body around did not sit well with me as I felt that when we moved you from the funeral home to the church the next step ought to be the cemetery.

 The wake went better than I anticipated and that is purely my opinion. I had never been involved in anything like this before so I operated on the premise that I was throwing a roast where your friends would come to remember you in spoken words and in song if they so wished, and at the end of the evening the pastor would give a blessing. Well there was spoken word alright and because there was no protocol or agenda to follow, at one point I decided to take the microphone and say a few words just so that the gathering would not become listless, this was after Amber had stood up and spoken so glowingly about you much to my surprise. I had no idea that she would command so much discipline and courage to stand before almost eighty or so persons and not falter.

 Because I was speaking without a script when I thought I should end I inadvertently said “thank you for coming to sit with me please have a good evening” mother, some folks took it to mean that all was done and they left. Mama I successfully cleared out the room leaving just the family members and extended family members and the pastor had yet to come. Thankfully, we had an enormous amount of late comers who came afterward with apologies that I waved aside as I was too happy to see the room fill back up.

Suddenly I was the one being roasted as I was being ribbed for dismissing the folks with my “thank you and good evening”. This will go down in the record books as the one and only time I would ever welcome late coming. So as the late folks filed in I welcomed them very warmly and watched the room fill back up just in time for the pastors’ arrival.

Again Phillip was extremely distraught and looked weak in the knees. A couple times I suggested to him that he sit down, as I feared he would collapse in a heap. Even Dr. Livingstone became concerned. I passed the evening in a fog of thank you and comforting words. Bedtime was as ghastly as the nights before.

                                                  DAY FIVE.

 This is the day I never hoped to see but was now a reality. This was to be the day that we would bury your remains because you were dead and no longer our mother, no longer wife to my father or grandmother to your grandchildren. You have been gone four full days. This would be our final goodbye, our one last look at you. In a very strange way the morning dawned with the oddest of anticipation. It was as if there was a strange excitement as well as a kind of disquiet.

I knew what the disquiet was about, but for the life of me Ma I can’t imagine what the excitement was about. We were not glad that we were going to bury you, but it was like we were going to a very formal ball given in honor of you. Everything was meticulously arranged and we were all in formal attire. It was weird Ma and I desperately tried to dismiss the ambivalence and to dwell only in the sorrow, to no avail. My adrenaline colored my aura. If adrenaline has a color my complexion would be severely altered by now. I am filled with the stuff. Fear has captured my imagination and petrified me something awful. Dr. Livingstone kept asking me if I was okay as if he was expecting me to blow like Vesuvius. I wasn’t going to blow up, but the temptation to run screaming seemed quite attractive.

As the family prepared for the mornings event, I took a quiet moment to look over my notes and the readings that I would do. I had rid myself of doing the remembrance, as I knew I did not have the appetite for that bit of it. Two days before I had sat down with Reverend Benjamin and apprised him of your life’s events so that he could do that part; besides he was the one tending you over your illness and you had an excellent rapport with him. Plus this would really be the last time he’d be praying over you. Here I laugh, poor man.

 The rest of the official activities were my responsibility. It was enough that I had to read a letter from your grandchildren in Florida and two other readings that we had selected. The pastors had full control of the program that we prepared. So I looked over my notes and thought ahead as to the sequence of events. The limousine was fifteen minutes early upon my instructions, as I did not wish any member of the family to dawdle and create a late situation. The service was scheduled to begin at 10am and so it would. It was to be your last wish granted. No late coming or confusion, no raving and running up and down the aisles of the church. So all who needed Valium should take it before coming, but there was to be no commotion. Just a serene moment so your memory could transition in peace and quiet. That you could slip away unnoticed.

 Mama I couldn’t eat a thing. I was thankful for the coffee Stephanie brewed for that would be my only meal until late afternoon at the repast. The service went smoothly and once more I was in awe as to how many folks took the time to attend. The church was almost filled up mama. Because the organ wasn’t functioning due to the fire at Christmas, we used piano selections for the interludes. Moonlight sonata by Bach filled the Sanctuary as Mr. Reid played so sensitively and made the morning so serene. Mama, because Marcia was still in Kosovo, as you knew she’d be, it wasn’t by happenstance that Monica Maynard happened to be in town and honored us by singing the most beautiful song.

 She claimed that she had not sung for over five years, but Ma, her voice so full of feeling, that rich contralto that you so loved to hear. She was effortlessly beautiful. But seriously mama, I hardly think that Marcia would have been able to sing even if she was not stuck in Kosovo. Hilreth cleverly set up the audio system enabling Marcia to hear the service in real time. I was so happy to know that that was possible. Pastor Cole gave the words of comfort to the family and as was expected Pastor Vassel’s homily was outstanding. Then it was time to close the coffin for the last time. Ma, did you know that each coffin has a key? They do Ma, and after I lowered the lid Carrie produced a key from her pocket and sealed the coffin. It was never going to be opened again and we will never see your mortal remains as long as we would all live. I almost was the one to disturb the morning, as the closing of the coffin was for me a wretched event. February 22^nd was an extremely cold day and very windy. I wish I could recall the exact temperature but it was brutal ma. We sat under a tent on the hill before the very deep opening in the ground that was prepared to house your remains. It was exceptionally deep as it will also be room for your husband when he is ready. The great mound of earth that was excavated rose up in our faces as if to mock. The wind whipped at our cheeks and burned our ears. My eyes watered and I wasn’t sure if I was cold or if I had lost control of my emotions. Phillip was miserable Ma and so was pops. Stephanie stared at the hole and I dared not imagine her thoughts. Matthew sat numb, his shoulders moving up and down with each quiet sob. Amber tried to comfort her father to no avail. It was after a very long time that I noticed how many of our friends had come along to the gravesite. I never anticipated that any one would wish to come see it through to the bitter end. Cold and bitter it was on February 22^nd. But Ma, they came and it must have been quite a procession as we drove past the house and paused one last time with you. There were at least fifty cars driving to the cemetery. If you could have been there to see how your friends expressed their gratitude for your life and time with them. It was Pastor Vassel’s voice that dragged me back from my reverie as I stood on that cold hill.

 “We therefore commit the body of your daughter Lula to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life”. His voice cut into the silence and ricocheted off my heartstrings, I died. You were truly dead and gone, why else would he be saying that. When I watched the mini fork lift shovel the soft willing earth back into place, a flood of adrenaline burned a hole in my stomach and I had to turn my entire body away from the sight.   This indeed was the ugliest day in my life, and yet my punishment was not over as another such day is very much in my future.

 

The women’s guild at our Church had prepared an afternoon meal for the friends and family and against my real desire to go home and hide, I drove back to the church and went to the hospitality hall for the repast.

It was a lovely lunch mama; you would have been pleased with everything. I wished that I had an appetite but as much as I could, I did try to eat what the ladies had provided. Peaches and Claudette organized the affair and gave so much of themselves. Yes that same Peaches who wears her hair low, Sasha’s mom.   I made the best of my self for the rest of the afternoon even though I felt my spirit spiraling downward.

That night Mama I felt like crying but had no place to do it in private as the family was still together and would be at the house for the next week. I was happy to have them there with me even though I had no will to engage them in conversations.

Within the group, I think Phil understands my reactions best. I could be wrong but it is just a feeling that I have. I know you appreciated having him as your son –in- law. How odd that your son and son in law are both named Phillip? Hence the Phil and Phillip although when Amber and Matthew were children they dubbed them Uncle Philly in New Jersey and Uncle Phillip in the Bronx.

 I made myself comfortable on the red couch and closed my eyes. In an instant, my mind flooded with images of you at different phases of your illness. The first night that you collapsed and your liver bled, that night I thought it was curtains for you, but the quick and skillful intervention of the doctors in the ER staved off death who from then on stalked us both for three and a half years. I am laughing Mama; we sure gave him a run for his money. Wretched Angel!!

We both knew he would ultimately win but we were not going to make it easy for him. Heck! Aren’t we supposed to live life to the fullest? In that case we weren’t yet full and so we surrounded you and pressed on and in doing so saw the whole point to life and living. We saw love and its many faces. We saw you at your worst and at your finest. Poor death he watched and waited {I am sure he pitied us greatly} for we were determined to mess up his agenda. Your worst brought out the very best in me, for in trying to understand your dreadful reaction to your sudden physical demise, I realized that I had to gird my emotions with total compassion and the purest love that only my soul could produce. There were days mama, I am sure you were painfully aware when you wreaked havoc with my emotions. But who was I to be arrogant or spiteful? As quickly as my resentments came, they were dismissed, for the knowledge of your love for me would completely overwhelm me and I would forgive your unreasonable outbursts.

 

I knew that you were not railing at me at those times. I understood your dilemma of moving from upright to house bound almost overnight. There you were eighty-six years old, vital and coherent, running your household, going to the supermarket on September 11 2001, and that very night cut down with bleeding esophageal varices, staring death in the face. What a transition? You had no warning for us to foresee such a disaster. You were on top of your health matters. So we thought.

Mama that night my life as I knew it was severely altered and without any coercion, my siblings came running to your bedside to join me. They never left mama as you know. The first year was quite a trial for the entire family. This sort of thing was a first for us and for the first time in my life, I understood why I had studied nursing. Here I was an RN who had stopped practicing but for some unknown reason had kept current with medical matters. I had switched careers and used to get annoyed when folks who knew that I was a skillfully trained nurse with a post graduate degree in Intensive Care and care of the critically ill and had spent a full year in the operating room working with the Cardiac Thoracic team; would ask me why I wasn’t practicing. I had enough I use to respond and I wanted to do other things. But the money they’d say, “Yes the money”. I am thinking back on the day about six months before you left, you had suddenly held my hand and said; “Nurse Rachett, that was your nick -name for me, I now know why you became a nurse” I looked at you and realized that you were serious, so much tenderness and gratitude was on your face and my heart immediately knew what you were going to say. I put my hand on your mouth to stop you from saying it but you removed my hand and told me how grateful you were to me for taking such good care of you that you were sorry that you had horrible moments and had to some degree disrupted my life.

 I didn’t know what to say, as I would not have had it any other way, how could it have been mama? When did I ever need you and you never showed up? You spent a lifetime and then some, caring for your family and the village. You gave more than was required of you mama so three and a half years of my life was nothing to devote to your care. This was an opportunity for me to experience God in fullness and truth and to understand all the things I said I believed in.

To come to know what sincerity meant in both me and in others. It was during some of my most stressful times that I had some very illuminating thoughts. I talked a lot to myself especially at nights when I was up with you in that final year.  I recall a particular night after I had gone over a year with just two hours sleep per day, I remembered my night duty tours as a registered nurse and how I had taken a grand oath, that over my dead body would I ever do night duty again.  Suddenly I find myself doing not just night duty but being the only nurse on duty. Every night was a new experience mama. The best part was our conversations.

Do you remember how sometimes I would be so sleepy and wanted to rush you in the bathroom, and you would crack me up by saying, “Nurse Ratchet your bedside manners are deplorable, did you train at the animal hospital?” “Ratchet, I am speaking to you” we would have a good laugh as I got you settled back in bed only to hear you say, “Can you bake me a little pound cake, I feel like eating cake” and burst out laughing when you saw my eyes bulge with pure evil, for it was already 3am and sleep rode me like a warrior. Oh Mama, I miss your nonsense.

 Mama do you remember when I broke my leg and was bed bound for about three months how you and my father catered to me. You gave me a little bell to ring when I needed you instead of using the phone. Do you recall the day that I was bored and so tired of watching movies I decided to annoy you and rang the bell and you came running? I smiled and said I just wanted to make sure you were not upstairs reading. You beat me with the pillow and told me that you were not going to give me any plantains with my dinner. It was such a good comforting feeling to have you beating me with that little pillow I had taken from the plane. That same little pillow became the corner stone under your head during your time of illness. I have no idea how you ended up with it, but no matter how many other pillows you were propped up on, that little one always rested under your head.  

Ma, I must have drifted off to sleep which was a blessing for when I was conscious again the lights were still on and my watch said 5am. I remembered everything again and there on the red couch in the stillness of Thursday morning I wept for what I had lost. I wept for the part of my life that was now closed to my touch. It was over. The days on earth with you had ended. What is to become of me? My head ached so much and my tears flooded the pillow. I felt something soft nudging me. It was the dog wanting to go outside. Poor Teddy, what would he do now that you were not there to feed him ‘not for dogs items’?

 

                         ITS DIFFERENT AROUND HERE NOW.

Its different around here that you are no longer living with us, and the world is in a grand state of uproar and seems to be getting more complex despite all the diplomatic and peace keeping efforts. Mr. Sharon is in long term care, frankly I think he has been placed in the very state you warned us not to let you get into and had signed a do not resuscitate form against. God was good to me, as I was not asked to exercise that authority. I came very close to it once but you rallied. You and I both know that politics surrounds that decision, for who wants to go down in history as the one who made the decision to pull the plug on Ariel Sharon. Therefore, he must languish in a long-term facility until he is almost a skeleton. Then will come the burial and the grandiloquent speeches. What a pack of hypocrites we all are mama? The drama in the West Bank continues and Hamas and Israel are daggers drawn again.

 It seems as if God Himself will have to intervene and put an end to this confounded warring. Lately the Bushman has turned his sights on Iran. I must be naive Mama but as far as I am concerned, we are giving Iran and their little braggart of a president way too much attention.   It is my view to ignore them. We have our spy tactics, utilize them. When we pay so much obvious attention we give them power I believe. Leave them and the uranium; just do not take your eyes off them. Isn’t it the same situation in North Korea? So why aren’t we bothering them and making a fuss? I will tell you why Ma, there isn’t any oil in North Korea. However, the North Korean leader seems crazy enough to launch missiles. I say the bushman is misguided and is just as much of a despot as any of the ones he is targeting. Your beloved America is now the most despised country in the world all because of double standards and fake morality. We are just as bad as those extremist Muslims who use God as a front for their quest for power and control.

 What is the difference between the bushman and Saddam? Americans are dying in droves and the cause is neither just nor honorable. Lining up our young men and gassing them is no different than sending them in battle for the so-called enemy to line them up as targets and shoot them down. To me it is still the spilling of innocent blood. I will not burden you with world events for I am sure you have all the answers by now. The grass is covering your grave. It is young and tender and a mild green. The photosynthesis action is not fully activated yet. The cemetery is in full bloom and absolutely peaceful. Once when I lived in Jamaica I went to a barbecue in an old cemetery. I had no idea it was a cemetery until I sat eating my spare ribs and noticed in between the very high grass something that looked like a headstone and upon closer inspection noted it to be so. I demanded from my host if we were in a cemetery and he cheerfully told me yes, with his mouth full of pig knuckles.

I was incensed and packed up and left immediately, especially because I needed to use the bathroom most urgently. The Woodlawn cemetery is a beauty mama and really demands a blanket and a picnic basket. There is more to be said about persons who would picnic in a cemetery. More anon.

                                 TRYING TO SAY GOODBYE.

It’s November mama and I am still trying to say goodbye, but I drag my feet. Alas, I have some thing else to tell you. Something you must know by now but just in case I am telling you anyway. On Thursday November 9^th, Bobby died. What a shock I got when Angie called me at work to say her dad was found dead in bed? Ma, don’t you recall when he had come to see you early last year? Your favorite nephew. I can hardly come to grips with the idea even though I attended the funeral and saw him resplendent in his coffin. Ma, he looked so ‘trash’ as the young folk would say, a real Mr. GQ. In life and in death he looked sharp. You know he was barely 63years old, but I think I am getting used to the idea of ‘a time to live and a time to die.’ In a fog of tears and surprise we buried him on Wednesday November 15^th. Phillip left before the service began as he became overwhelmed seeing him lying in the coffin. I was not that lucky as I had readings to do. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, when you consider that he was my favorite cousin and that we grew up together.

 The trouble was that we had no warning that he could possibly be leaving. This year seem to be a year to ‘gather’. Two weeks after you passed, cousin Blossom passed, then on May 26^th to be exact, Carlton Williams died and if that wasn’t enough on July 11^th Uncle Lawson died suddenly. While Carlton and Blossom were ailing, Uncle was up and around. His last big outing was Fourth of July over at Stephanie’s. We had a barbecue and he attended and had a jolly good time. We took many pictures and really bonded as a group.

Seven days later Gary called to say that his father was having a heart attack. It was massive mama; he never even made it to the ER. Mama I will be so happy to see the back of this year. What a year!! The grim reaper surely cleared a path on our estate.  Thanksgiving is next Thursday and heavens know that I much to give thanks for, but I am feeling so beaten that I hardly know what to open my mouth to say.

                             My mortality is ever before me.