Today started beautifully, if you ignore the threat of drought and the fact that every plant in this climate zone is flummoxed by alternating hard frosts and balmy spring days. Buds swell in the afternoon one day and shrivel and drop off the next night in bitter cold. I woke to lemony light and that always cheers me so I got up, went outside in my robe and snuggled into a chair to watch the day brighten and feel it warm. There were cedar waxwings in the bare branches of the plum and the mockingbirds and sparrows were filling the persimmon---an avian chorus of spring in January. I closed my eyes. Big mistake.
The best I can describe it is this: it is as if there were a sniper. He was there the whole time, letting me settle into his cross-hairs, finger on the trigger but in no hurry to shoot. His aim is perfect. He can wait, he always finds his mark. His mark is my brain. I wonder if when that first deafening roar of grief welled up and spilled out my eyes, and choked my throat, if all the birds scattered? Whether they did or not, I have no way of knowing. All I hear is a clatter, all I see is a red sea behind my eyelids. What is this pain? Is it loneliness? Is it dying?
It is a remembering. It is the memory of my hand reaching down the wooly tunnel of a sleeve for your little hand, pulling it up and kissing the fingers and, because it is our game, gently biting the thumb. It is watching you wear long sleeves all one summer to hide the needle marks. It is the memory of smoothing your hair back from your forehead to check for fever, to look you fully in the eyes when you are telling me one of your earnest stories, or, later just because you would still let me. It is the last gesture I did to your lifeless body. I smoothed your hair back from your cold forehead so that I could press my forehead against yours.
Remember when Pele died? We called the vet and she came to the house and you and your brother both stayed home from school. We petted him, we murmured to him, we dripped our tears onto his fur and promised him that we would never forget him. Your brother was stoic, slightly embarrassed by your choking sobs, but you didn't care. You cried so freely, you talked just to Pele. You told him how much you loved him, how you would never forget how he always slept with you, how he played Legos and even read books. No other cat will ever, ever be like you, you told him desperately. When the vet gave him the shot, I told you to pet him, pet him all the way out of his body. I told you to watch his eyes, that you would be able to see the light leave the eyes and you were amazed and even stopped crying for a minute when you exclaimed: I saw it! I saw him leave!
Afterwards we carried him to the grave I had dug in the garden and we wrapped him in his blue blanket and you put a blue Lego in the hole and your brother put a blue marble in and we put the pictures you drew and the letters you wrote on top of him before we scooped in the soil. We said goodbye over and over and over and when your brother had enough, you stayed and needed to be held and rocked and told a story. I told you that Pele was on a journey with no body now. I made it sound beautiful for you. You asked if he could hear you and see you and though I can remember your question, I don't remember how I answered.
I did not watch the light leave your eyes. The light left your eyes hours before my key turned in the lock. I did not get to hold you or to tell you over and over again how much we loved you. I did not get to murmur words of comfort to you as your soul began to unpin itself from your body. When I got there you were hours into your journey.
These little deaths of mine never last. The sniper's bullet turns out to be a stun gun. The paralyzing drug wears off and I open my eyes. The bare branches are once again full of birds, and the day is already warm. I can hear sounds from inside the house. My other two boys. The ones I still have. Traffic sounds are picking up. Thoughts of work come crowding in and I am briefly panicked that I am late. "Where are you?" I ask. But i know that the question is flawed. You are here with me, in ashes, in memory, in little stabs and huge assaults and quiet smiles and boys flying by on skateboards and the feeling of a body gone to stone and the sound of a bike being thrown to ground and laughter coming in the door and the terrified eye of the rabbit and the langourous stretch of the cat. But you are also gone; you are also the one that memory cannot reconstruct. The you that was the light leaving your eyes, the you that I can neither hold nor follow. The one for whom the word where has no meaning at all.
The best I can describe it is this: it is as if there were a sniper. He was there the whole time, letting me settle into his cross-hairs, finger on the trigger but in no hurry to shoot. His aim is perfect. He can wait, he always finds his mark. His mark is my brain. I wonder if when that first deafening roar of grief welled up and spilled out my eyes, and choked my throat, if all the birds scattered? Whether they did or not, I have no way of knowing. All I hear is a clatter, all I see is a red sea behind my eyelids. What is this pain? Is it loneliness? Is it dying?
It is a remembering. It is the memory of my hand reaching down the wooly tunnel of a sleeve for your little hand, pulling it up and kissing the fingers and, because it is our game, gently biting the thumb. It is watching you wear long sleeves all one summer to hide the needle marks. It is the memory of smoothing your hair back from your forehead to check for fever, to look you fully in the eyes when you are telling me one of your earnest stories, or, later just because you would still let me. It is the last gesture I did to your lifeless body. I smoothed your hair back from your cold forehead so that I could press my forehead against yours.
Remember when Pele died? We called the vet and she came to the house and you and your brother both stayed home from school. We petted him, we murmured to him, we dripped our tears onto his fur and promised him that we would never forget him. Your brother was stoic, slightly embarrassed by your choking sobs, but you didn't care. You cried so freely, you talked just to Pele. You told him how much you loved him, how you would never forget how he always slept with you, how he played Legos and even read books. No other cat will ever, ever be like you, you told him desperately. When the vet gave him the shot, I told you to pet him, pet him all the way out of his body. I told you to watch his eyes, that you would be able to see the light leave the eyes and you were amazed and even stopped crying for a minute when you exclaimed: I saw it! I saw him leave!
Afterwards we carried him to the grave I had dug in the garden and we wrapped him in his blue blanket and you put a blue Lego in the hole and your brother put a blue marble in and we put the pictures you drew and the letters you wrote on top of him before we scooped in the soil. We said goodbye over and over and over and when your brother had enough, you stayed and needed to be held and rocked and told a story. I told you that Pele was on a journey with no body now. I made it sound beautiful for you. You asked if he could hear you and see you and though I can remember your question, I don't remember how I answered.
I did not watch the light leave your eyes. The light left your eyes hours before my key turned in the lock. I did not get to hold you or to tell you over and over again how much we loved you. I did not get to murmur words of comfort to you as your soul began to unpin itself from your body. When I got there you were hours into your journey.
These little deaths of mine never last. The sniper's bullet turns out to be a stun gun. The paralyzing drug wears off and I open my eyes. The bare branches are once again full of birds, and the day is already warm. I can hear sounds from inside the house. My other two boys. The ones I still have. Traffic sounds are picking up. Thoughts of work come crowding in and I am briefly panicked that I am late. "Where are you?" I ask. But i know that the question is flawed. You are here with me, in ashes, in memory, in little stabs and huge assaults and quiet smiles and boys flying by on skateboards and the feeling of a body gone to stone and the sound of a bike being thrown to ground and laughter coming in the door and the terrified eye of the rabbit and the langourous stretch of the cat. But you are also gone; you are also the one that memory cannot reconstruct. The you that was the light leaving your eyes, the you that I can neither hold nor follow. The one for whom the word where has no meaning at all.
