STONES END - Day 31

A month of mindful writing, every day a moment in time; a few minutes of thought about you and how you are gone, the fact of that and what it means - do I even know - of course not, just that every time I think I'm used to the idea, the realization strikes me anew.

LONG GOODBYE - Day 30

Just because this month is winding down and I could stop writing my small stones, the ones honouring or remembering you - it occurs to me that in no way am I anywhere near saying goodbye to you. It might have something to do with your ashes still sitting near me in my desk, waiting for Spring and softer soil, but I think I know better. There's more to goodbye than a month of small stones.

FUGUE STATE - Day 29

The cold has become the stuff of legend again, freezing exposed skin in under a minute; I find myself feeling extra-weary when it gets like this and falling in and out of sleep. A couple of times over the last day or so, I've wakened thinking I need to call you about something then, remembering I can't, or I don't need to after all, I am suddenly suffused with sadness. And glad of the tears - they seem so normal finally.

YOU COME TO MIND

He has more time on the weekends now, no longer chauffeuring you to the grocery store or taking you for long drives after. And we notice how often he's not in the west end any more near our grandsons - where he used to "occasionally" drop you off or pick you up at your church ... There is a bigger hole in his life than either of us expected. I know what a good son he was to you, how lucky we all were that you two had that relationship; not every son-in-law would have been so amenable. I only wish I knew how to help him mourn.

SIX WORD STONE for Day 26

words like grenades detonate on landing

DARK ENFOLDS THE EVENING

Another day goes swiftly down as dark overtakes the sky. A weariness I can't explain has felled me, and a scent of hopelessness is creeping in around the window-frames, a draft with which I'm quite familiar and one I seem unable to avoid, accompanying it. Drawing the drapes, or a heavy shawl about my shoulders, seems no defense at all.

ALMOST ONE MONTH AGO - Day 24

How can that be? In two days, it will be a whole month since you were "pronounced" and isn't that the oddest expression ever? The crash-cart doctor insisted he had to do something, since they were called; you were a DNR patient and they were summoned by mistake, he asked me if it would be alright if he "pronounced" you. A feeling of overwhelming sadness for them swept over me then - of course, they would rather be trying to save your life - and no-one had thought to listen for your none-existent heartbeat after all. So, he got to do that at least.

LAKE CHURCH - Day 23

Posting a photo of the little white church at Belmont today, I was suddenly back there revisiting those summers; I kept picturing you running with buckets of water along the path on the island,coming back from the pump - singing a hymn at the top of your lungs - no drinking water except from the well, so it was a must, but you were so scared of snakes and someone had seen one on the path that day...Bill and I, too young to help - giggling our fool heads off in the cottage.

WITH REAL REGRET - Day 22

More than old photos, greeting cards, even letters - it is journal entries of my own that I find the most upsetting, the ones I made while still in Italy debating about returning early from our stay there, wondering if you were really that sick, or just getting old. Of course I know, as it turned out, you weren't really all that ill that time - were in fact checking out of the place by the time we had landed. But, I find myself thinking - you were never really quite right after that either, were you...

DIGITAL YOU - Day 21

Babysitting the boys tonight and on the kitchen counter at their place is the digital photo frame their Mom bought you for Christmas. She has filled it with dozens of shots of you and your great-grandsons and other members of the family and you flip by in a continuous loop. It is haunting and jarring and wonderful all at the same time. And it makes me miss you in a way I hadn't expected.

PERCHANCE TO DREAM - Day 20

In the stillness that is night I awake, disoriented, wondering at the dream fleeing my consciousness and the absurd feeling I have that I need to grasp it, hold it close. Then, like a small wave crawling reluctantly back to a beach as the tide goes out, so come bits of dreamscape - you aren't here, you aren't, you—

MEMORIAL DAY

From the Piper to your grand-daughter's eloquent eulogy to your other grand-daughter's angelic Ave Maria ... it was just as you had ordained. It was ... memorable.

MAKING CALLS

The voice travelling a continent wide sounds the same as ever it did across our back fence. I marvel at this, she is older than you were when you stopped breathing. She is resigned as soon as she hears who is calling, had planned to call me this weekend. You had missed her birthday, then Christmas - she knew, just didn't want to know. I am sadder for her than anyone I've told.

SHINING A LIGHT ON YOUR LIFE

Writing obits and memorials,

orders of service too

is as far from writing small stones

as imaginable and every bit

as exhausting as it sounds.

Pouring  over details of a life—

the inconsequential

and the important—but really

who am I to decide this—really.

DEATH COSTS - DAY16

I picture you smiling, sitting in your favourite chair, the one with the needlepoint-decorated seat. You have one of the Romanian pashminas draped around your shoulders, the one that's all soft greens - olive and avocado and something very pale - it brings out your eyes. I have just finished reading your obit to you and telling you the cost; neither of us can believe how much they charge to announce a death but it makes us laugh. If only.  

OBIT WRITING - Day 15

I wish we had done this while you still breathed. I cannot believe you really wanted the dry matter-of-fact, uninteresting text I found in your personal effects. You were a published author and gave impassioned talks at your church, for heaven's sake (no pun intended), plus volunteered and advocated almost tirelessly, at times. Well, I rewrote it and showed the world the remarkable woman you were. I hope you'll forgive me.

IMAGINE

My reading at the Upper Crust went very well tonight, surprisingly as I've been MIA for quite some time, suffering some sort of agoraphobia that seems mainly concerned with public appearances. Partway through, as I looked out over the crowd - an ineffable sadness swept over me as I realized, you had never heard me read, not once. In fact, you never commented on any of my work even though I gave you copies every now and then. Even dead, there's no pleasing you.

IN YOUR CHURCH

There to plan your memorial, I feel oddly discombobulated to open the doors and run into your great-grandsons (my grandsons) first thing. They too seem at odds with the context. What is this Grandma doing in Great-Grandma's church? Their eyes, the colour of prairie skies, regard me with the candid frankness only the very young are permitted. As soon as we speak to them, their Grandpa and I, they relax somewhat but seem eager to leave this place, where Great-Grandma has gone missing.

YOU AND YOUR AFFAIRS

Laughter bubbles up inside me. Inappropriate giggles threatening to spill out all over the table and all your financial papers. Your executor has just asked me if you were married more than once. For some reason all I can think of is finding out, while settling my brother's estate (a misnomer, estate really, but never mind) that his Decree Nisi was lifted and declared Decree Final, shortly before he died. This was only two years ago so it's still fresh in my mind. We had no idea, none of us, that he had ever even been married. Now he was dead and we were learning his divorce was final. To think of my mother having another husband is so beyond the pale, I think I might start chortling and not be able to stop. The executor thinks he's insulted us, says he's required by law to ask. I cannot look at my husband. I'm not sure why it is so funny. It just is.

THINGS TO BE GRATEFUL FOR

Watching the family next door as they put one foot in front of the other, hardly able to navigate their way through the minutes, never mind the hours and days, I find myself disproportionately thankful that at least you are not here to learn of Juan's death. It is a bitter tragedy, one beyond understanding - how a man still reasonably young (certainly too young to die) could have bad headaches, be admitted to hospital for tests, have benign tumors removed and seem to be on the mend, then suddenly - the headaches return; the family try to get the doctors to take another look, are told everything is "usual" or "normal" and suddenly, the man is dead. Of course, there are likely no villains here but when a family is tattered, they need to assign blame and observing them in their shell-shocked state, I get that. Still, it is a small victory that you are not here to witness it.