Elegy

[ChrisGibson]

"My grief was never meant to be a contest against yours." Well, at least Donovan's right. How I feel about grief, or everything, for that matter, changes all the time, which is why I tell stories. Everything seems to be in grief right now. On gaydemon we're getting to Nathan Strauss's funeral and the end of The Beasts.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT WE BEGIN THE CLOSING CHAPTER OF ELEGY





T H I R T E E N

AMEN








“We are here, we are the ice, we are the freezing water,
the churning sticks, we are the expanse of cold.
We are yours, you are ours. We always were.
We always will be.”



Cade was used to waking up in strange places when he came back home to Ely.
Technically this was not Ely. It was twenty five minutes north of Ely, but here he was in the living room of Dan Malloy’s house. Waking up was one of those strange things where he woke up happy, but not quite knowing what was going on, and then he began to piece things together. Midnight Mass, the party after, which was like a family gathering. His mother, yawning, heading home early. Him staying behind to talk to Dan Malloy, to talk to Rob and Frey, but Frey was heading to bed. But… to bed, when they didn’t live here. Cade had been at a party like this long ago, where no one wanted to leave and no one wanted to break it up and there had been such a good vibe and, at last, he’d torn himself away from it and he remembered there never was a party like that again. Until now he supposed, and this time he was determined not to tear himself away from it, to stand on the back porch and smoke cigarettes with Rob and Sheridan until the sun came up if need be, but the sun wasn’t coming up because this was the dead of winter and they would have to be up almost till eight to see that light.
Eventually the young judge, Sheridan’s partner, came out in his coat and skull cap, and said, “I see you sinners are freezing your asses off out here, smoking,”
But he held out his hand and Sheridan gave him a cigarette.
“Are we gonna get back to Rossford, or are we staying here?” Brendan asked.
“I was thinking we could stay here for the night,” Sheridan said. “We don’t have to pick up Rafe till the morning.”
Rafe was their son and he was staying with his godparents that night.
“Besides,” Sheridan continued, “I don’t really want to drive at two or three—“
“It’s almost four,” Brendan said, exhaling.
“Or four in the morning.”
“Is it really four?” Cade demanded.
Rob nodded.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll get you back to Ely.”
“Are you headed home now?” Sheridan asked him.
“No one,” a fatherly voice declared as the sandy haired priest Dan Malloy walked out onto the deck, “is driving anywhere at four with all the liquor that’s in you all, and I don’t think your Frey is going to take kindly to being waken up.”
“Where the hell is Frey anyway?” Rob said.
“He appropriated the third bedroom,” Dan said. “He has excellent sense.”
“Yes he does,” Rob agreed.
“He saw that one room was obviously mine and Keith’s. He saw two others and picked one, and it happens to be….” Dan said, looking at Sheridan and Brendan, “the one you haven’t stayed in.”
“I will take myself there, then,” Rob said, “and let Frey know we’re staying till morning.”
“I think,” Dan said as Rob turned to go inside, “that Frey has already let you know.”
“And now our young Cade,” Dan said.
“We’d all be cozy in a bed together,” Sheridan said merrily.
“Or I could just take the sofa.”
“The old Davenport,” Dan said.
And it conjured up images of deep cushions and great comfort before the gas fireplace, which is exactly what it brought.
“I’ll bring you some blankets and if you don’t mind, now that things are dying down I might even watch the fire with you while you fall asleep.”
One of the last things the old priest had said while Cade drifted off was, “And you might want to call,,, I mean TEXT…” as if getting used to the word, “your loved ones and let them know you’re here…”

In the grey light that meant somewhere around eight o clock, Cade blinked at his phone and saw no return message from his mother or sister which meant they’d gone to sleep perfectly sure he was safe, and a message fron Donovan reading: “See you in the morning.” And one which came later:
“What time should we leave?”
No matter how tired he was, Cade could never NOT respond to Donovan. He turned on his back, smacking his dry mouth and pushing hair out of his eyes.
“Frey and Rob are still here, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
He reminded himself to hit send. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d typed a message that had never left his end of the phone. He lay on his back thinking about another half hour of sleep, thinking about the need for the bathroom, and the need to rinse his mouth out, and finally putting all three of these in order and walking through the large living room to head through the kitchen and toward the hallway for a toilet. That and some water, and back to bed and… water.
He barely heard it, but before he left the kitchen and relieved his stinging bladder, he looked out on the endless expanse of the grey inland sea. Before he left this house, he would stand on frozen sand and great the grey green water on Christmas morning, under the pale blue sky.



When they came to the blue green house with the wrap around porch he saw smoke coming from the chimney and when they entered there was a fire roaring in the fireplace and the house was filled with the smell of breakfast. Donovan Shorter greeted his cousin and Rob serenely and said, “Are you going back home or traveling with us?”
“We were going back home,” Frey said, sliding off his coat, taking Rob’s and putting them on the large chair. “But if you’re cooking—”
“If I’m cooking you can bring your old ass in here and help me. You too, Robert.”
Cade stood in the living room, blinking, saying, “It really does look like a home.”
“Well, it is a home,” Donovan said, tersely, though he knew exactly what Cade meant.
“I didn’t even know we had breakfast food here.”
“We didn’t” said Simon, who was pouring a cup of coffee, “until we went to the store and bought it, and then low and behold, we had it.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great start to the final chapter! Donovan seems to be in a good place. We never let go of grief but it is important to keep on living. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I'm glad you've been here for the story. And I'm glad its meant something to you. Gracious, yawning my head off here. Time to head to bed.

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE PREPARATIONS FOR CHRISTMAS CONTINUE


In the grey light that meant somewhere around eight o clock, Cade blinked at his phone and saw no return message from his mother or sister which meant they’d gone to sleep perfectly sure he was safe, and a message fron Donovan reading: “See you in the morning.” And one which came later:
“What time should we leave?”
No matter how tired he was, Cade could never NOT respond to Donovan. He turned on his back, smacking his dry mouth and pushing hair out of his eyes.
“Frey and Rob are still here, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
He reminded himself to hit send. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d typed a message that had never left his end of the phone. He lay on his back thinking about another half hour of sleep, thinking about the need for the bathroom, and the need to rinse his mouth out, and finally putting all three of these in order and walking through the large living room to head through the kitchen and toward the hallway for a toilet. That and some water, and back to bed and… water.
He barely heard it, but before he left the kitchen and relieved his stinging bladder, he looked out on the endless expanse of the grey inland sea. Before he left this house, he would stand on frozen sand and great the grey green water on Christmas morning, under the pale blue sky.



When they came to the blue green house with the wrap around porch he saw smoke coming from the chimney and when they entered there was a fire roaring in the fireplace and the house was filled with the smell of breakfast. Donovan Shorter greeted his cousin and Rob serenely and said, “Are you going back home or traveling with us?”
“We were going back home,” Frey said, sliding off his coat, taking Rob’s and putting them on the large chair. “But if you’re cooking—”
“If I’m cooking you can bring your old ass in here and help me. You too, Robert.”
Cade stood in the living room, blinking, saying, “It really does look like a home.”
“Well, it is a home,” Donovan said, tersely, though he knew exactly what Cade meant.
“I didn’t even know we had breakfast food here.”
“We didn’t” said Simon, who was pouring a cup of coffee, “until we went to the store and bought it, and then low and behold, we had it.”

Later, after breakfast, Cade went walking. He had said to Don while they were in the kitchen making pancakes, “This whole last month I can’t begin to understand what you’ve been through—”
This was a preamble to something, but Don wouldn’t abide it.
“Of course you do. It’s the same pit you’re in when you look around this house and you think of your father. When you think of missing the poor old man and how sad it is he can’t be here, but how much worse it would have been if he was here. You mourn that. You even mourn the fact that he might not be around for long. And then you mourn the fact that things weren’t better. You mourn what’s never going to happen. You mourn everything that shouldn’t have happened. All at once. A lot of times things are wonderful, but some days they are just grey and you are in a hole. That, I imagine, is how you feel.”
The wind whipped through his hair and he should have put a hat on but he didn’t. It had snowed all last night till the world was thick and white. Donovan knew that Cade needed to be alone. They could have walked this shore together and very often had, but right now this was essential.
Don said, with the tone of one getting ready to pull a tooth.
“And there is more. You have lost, and you lost long before I did. Nash.”
Had he forgotten Nash? Or had he just decided he didn’t have the right to mourn him? His old friend, really his first lover. The devastation of someone so young and golden and beautiful gone from the world. He and Nash had railed against the abuse they’d suffered at Pastor Pitt’s hands, and then railed against Pastor Pitt’s office, Cade taking the preacher’s very guitar for his own. He and Nash had had sex on the floor of that church auditorium and even though Cade had been no virgin, had impregnated a girlfriend and paid for her abortion a year earlier, this felt like the first real sex he’d ever known. He’d spent summer nights, his body twined with Nash’s, breath to breath, skin to skin, warmth to warmth, sweat to sweat, had spent months away from him still able to feel Nash’s nails down his back.
But he had begun to mourn Nash even while he lived, seeing his friend grow thinner, greyer, more bitter, seeing the wonderful wildness veer toward madness. He had been there to behold, or heard over the phone about Nash’s almost run ins with death, and he had been far from Ely and unable to come back to the funeral, estranged from his old friend when he’d learned he’d OD-ed and been found under a bridge, frozen, dead several days up in Lansing. He had told himself then that it didn’t matter, that Nash had been long gone, and he had never sat down to mourn him. He had not taken shiva for seven days. Maybe if he’d done so he would not have healed so poorly, grown into a damaged man of backward feelings and twisted moods.
He was so lost in his thoughts that it was three rings before he heard the phone and reached into his pocket.
“Merry Christmas.”
It took him a moment to realize it was Freddy and he said, “Merry Christmas, Little Brother. How is Florida?”
“Not hot, but not freezing.”
“Well, that’s something because right here freezing is exactly what it is.”
“At least you can turn up the heat.”
“I’m on the beach right now.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” Cade said. “It’s totally covered in snow after last night, except for the Lake, of course.”
“Is it frozen?”
“Lake Michigan? No. It’s too big to be frozen.”
“I’ve never seen the Lake in winter.”
“Are you serious?”
“No need.”
Cade did not share his brother’s feeling, but he only said, “I’m on it right now. Well, by it.”
“What’s it look like?”
“I’ll send you a picture. It looks like a giant slushy machine. The sky is incredibly blue this morning.”
“Are you with Dad?”
“No,’ Cade said. “I’m at the house, though.”
He was going to say that he had thought of visiting, talking about Deanna’s logic which she had shared last night, but none of this seemed to matter, and he didn’t want to talk about it with Freddy. He had forgotten all about visiting his father and there was no time now. He didn’t want to, but felt guilty for not wanting to.
“I’m sorry I left,” Freddy said.
Cade wasn’t sure if that was true, but he knew that Freddy thought he should feel sorry, and even if it wasn’t true, it didn’t change what Cade said next.
“You’re young, You’ve been here your whole life. It wasn’t fair that you should have to stay here and care for Dad. You deserve everything you have now.”
Last year Freddy had told Cade that he was the one always leaving, but now Freddy had left. It seemed like the three Richards children were still scattered and separate all over the world.
“I think Lindsay might be pregnant,” Freddy said.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you feel about that?”
“I feel like I might like being a Dad.”
“Yeah?”
“You ready to be an uncle?”
Cade wondered how much of an uncle he would be to a baby in Florida whose mother he didn’t know.
“Yeah,” he said. “And Deanna’ll be glad to be an aunt.”
“But don’t tell her yet. Or Mom. I mean, we’re not even sure if it’s happened yet.”
In another world they would all be close and maybe close together, In another world Cade would have a thirteen year old, maybe a son but possibly a daughter. The slushy lake washed against the white snow and didn’t allow for regrets or too many speculations. Nature did not wash away human sorrow, but it did put it in its place.

“Then, Joseph wandered, but he did not wander.
And I looked up to the peak of the sky and saw
it standing still and I looked up into the air.
With utter astonishment I saw it, even the birds of the sky
were not moving.
And I looked at the ground and saw a bowl lying there
and workers reclining.
And their hands were in the bowl.
And chewing, they were not chewing.
And picking food up, they were not
picking it up.
And putting food in their mouths, they were not putting it
in their mouths.”

“What was that?”
“It’s from…. Not the Bible, but the almost Bible. The Gospel of James.”
Freddy didn’t need to say he’d never heard of it.
“It’s when Jesus is born and time stops, on Christmas. At midnight. Joseph looks around and sees the whole world… Frozen.”
“Like everything is in Michigan.”
“Yes,” Cade only half paid attention to the joke. “Very much like that.”
When the phone call was ended, Freddy’s words and even his existence seemed to depart with Cade’s finger sliding across the surface of the phone, but Don’s words had remained, about mourning, about Nash. Nash did not remain. That was the awfulness of mourning. Nash had gone to a place Cade could not follow, could not rightly conceive, and here was the very blue sky on the cold air and the grey white slush of Lake Michigan.
He remembered—well remember was too tame of a word—being a boy, throwing himself into the dirty autumn water, trying to die, but being rejected by the water and the mistresses who ruled it. The hands, the fins, the tails, the maidens of the deep. He looked out on the freezing waters.
“Are you there? Can you possibly be there, in that ice, in that freezing water, in those churning sticks… That expanse of cold?”
The water swayed majestically, the ice crunched against the coast, as it came back over and over again. The ice balls he remembered from last year and the year before rose again, ice boulders streaked with sand. Cade had a brief idea of himself dying in this water, not drowning, not being taken by it unwillingly, not suicide. There was no picture, just the belief that he had come from this expanse and would come back to it in the end. Everything had happened to him here. It was as he turned away and headed back to the house they sang to him.

“We are here, we are the ice, we are the freezing water,
the churning sticks, we are the expanse of cold.
We are yours, you are ours. We always were.
We always will be.”


























The notification had buzzed on DJ’s phone a while ago, but now he turned on his side, blinked and looked at the message while Josh yawned next to him,.
“Well,” he murmured.
“What?”
“Dad and Rob aren’t even in Ashby,” DJ said. “They went up to the Lake to meet some folks, and my cousin Donovan was there. He says Rob is on his way back here to have Christmas with your folks. Now they’re all just going straight to his place in Wallington and I’m supposed to bring you and Dad.”
“By which you mean Jason.”
“Yes.”
“When did they even leave?”
DJ yawned and lay back in bed shrugged.
“I have no idea, but I know when I’m not leaving. What time is it?”
Josh turned his back to DJ to look at his phone on the floor.
“It’s barely eight.”
“It’s an hour later where they are,” DJ realized. “What time are we going to your folks?”
“They wanted to go to ten a.m. Mass.”
“But you told them,” DJ was still yawning, “that that was barbaric.”
“I didn’t say it quite that way, but I did convince them to go to Midnight. So we’re supposed to come over at eleven.”
“That sounds good.”
“You’re yawning a lot,” Josh said.
“Cause I’m sleepy a lot. Well, I’m sleepy now.”
“Will two hours be enough rest?”
“Definitely,” DJ said, turning his phone around.
“Your folks, by which I mean, Frey, sure are busy,” Josh commented. “It’s like he’s all over the place.”

DJ couldn’t quite remember how things were supposed to be because, as Josh had said, his folks were all over the place. He called Jason Henley who said. “I’m at the house. Rob and Frey went out and then called me and Frey said he was in Wallington, so I’m headed there.”
“Well, head over here. We’re in Bennett and we’re going to Christmas lunch with Rob’s family and then heading to Wallington.”
“You all are moving so fast I’m getting whiplash. Should I bring Javon?”
Aside from the fact that DJ thought it was fine to bring his father to the Dwyer’s, but probably a mistake to invite Pat and Javon, he simply didn’t want them. He and Josh were just building a life and if Javon showed up, Pat surely would too, and DJ did not want to go back to that.
“No,” DJ said. “They’ll be traveling on their own.”
And there was that. He wasn’t sure if Josh was coming with him to Wallington or not, but he would already see Pat and Javon there anyway.


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! Things are really coming together and although this story is about grief I am going to miss it. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow! I hope you are having a nice weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I've been having a very nice evening, better than most Saturdays because I've organized it and had a lot of quiet space to think. Yes, I missed this story, and I will miss sharing it. I didn't know if it would be any good once I knew what I was writing about, but I guess I was wrong.

 

[ChrisGibson]

“Rather, all their faces were looking up.
And I saw sheep being driven, but the sheep were standing still.
And the shepherd lifted up his hand to strike them,
but his hand remained above them.
And I saw the rushing current of the river and I saw goats
and their mouths resting in the water,
but they were not drinking.
And suddenly everything was replaced by the ordinary
course of events.”

Donovan and Simon had been standing on the beach after coming home from Midnight Mass and the party after. With certain people it would have been appropriate to say, That was beautiful or “did you write that?” or “what was that from?” but with Don, Simon sensed it was best to say nothing.
They went inside and up the stairs and they didn’t remark about the sadness of the house where there had once been life, but the life had been brought to a sudden stop. They didn’t remark about such sadness because it led back to that hole of which they had already spoken. The two of them undressed quietly and turned up the heat, They climbed into bed and under deep covers ay naked, Simon’s light body stretched across Don’s, his arms holding him, cheek to chest.
“Oh, I’m so tired,” he said, running his hand over Don, “I don’t even know if I have any energy.”
“You don’t have to,” Don said.
“If we fuck we fuck,” Simon’s voice was gentle.
If we don’t, if we fall asleep and don’t wake till morning, that’s fair too.
Don reached for the night stand and turned out the light.

The first sleep of exhaustion passed. It always did. They had come to bed in the middle of the night, but in the time before Christmas, nights were long, and in the middle of the middle of the night, after the first resting, they pressed together, embracing tighter, stroking hair, taking comfort one in the other, and the stroking became kissing and in the darkness that stretches on where there are no rules and no light, the blankets came away and mouths slid down bodies. Electric ran all along Simon’s body as he came to life out of the gloom he had been in, and felt Don’s mouth on his breast, on his throat, on his nipples down his body, felt Don taking him in his mouth, felt himself swelling in Donovan’s mouth, lying back in the bed, pinioned by his ministries until he had to do to the same, until they curved in sixty nines and nine nines and elevens, and the quiet dark house was filled with their moans, their outcries, their curses, loud noise became lazy murmuring, laying back for each other, licking cocks like candy canes, lazily inserting fingers in the tightness of asses, giving themselves up to the rapid shocks of fucking, rejoicing in back massages, long tender kisses, kisses up and down the spine, tongues on testes, tongues in ass, the kissing of holy feet, the eruption of sacred orgasm, so powerful but let out in the small noises men make when they come, then in the loud ones. The cure from exhaustion was in that bed, gentle sighs and laughter were in that bed.
As the clock read 6:30 in the morning, Donovan laughed low, still hard, trapped between Simon’s buttocks, still aching from Simon in him not long ago, He thought, If we fuck we fuck. And we did. And we did much more.
It had been while his face was buried in the pillow and Simon was fucking him as hard as he wanted, rapidly, the bed creaking, the sweat from Simon’s nose dripping onto his back, Simon’s voice frantic, the message had come from Cade that he was asleep and would be there in the morning. All was right in this world. A drunken smile crossed Donovan’s face as he drew Simon’s hands down and they clasped each other. He pulled Simon deeper into him, hearing him grunt, strangle on his own voice, feeling the eruption of his coming.

Without words, whistling they had gotten up, not bathing put running cloths over each other they had dressed and gone to the store to buy pancake mix, sausage, eggs, milk, juice. It was barely seven, and they had come back into the house. Donovan held Simon’s face and stroked his hair again and again. Simon gave him a silly look, a goofy smile, and they had kissed and then, surprising each other, made love on the floor before the empty fireplace. Donovan had watched Simon squat naked before the hearth, making the morning fire and wondered, “What if we stayed like this and stayed right here and did nothing all Christmas?”
Simon did not say they should or should not, but it had been Donovan who had gone in to make the breakfast, which is how Cade and Rob and Frey had found them. Later they would be in Wallington by eleven with Rob and Frey making a stop in Bennett, but after breakfast, Cade had been by himself, on the water with his thoughts, and watching him Donovan had thought, But he is not by himself, not when he is on the water. That water is his.


TOMORROW NIGHT, THE EPILOGUE TO ELEGY

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great end to this story and I look forward to the Epilogue tomorrow! Excellent work!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Thank you for coming along for the journey. It has been more pleasant than either of us expected.

 

[ChrisGibson]

DONOVAN


the opposite of eulogy



This is the end. This is the end of the story of the beginning. This is the end of the story of my grief, but not the end of grief. Grief is a five letter word for memory and regret and rage and sorrow and many, many things but today, somewhere in that is joy. Or could it be that grief, being part of this life, is wrapped up in joy? We will think about death. We will think about those gone tomorrow, and even today, but this afternoon, in this house we think about other things. I had not planned to stay in Ely so long. I thought we would be back by nine in the morning, but this is because I am always leaving out reality, always leaving out my procrastinations. We come back at nearly twelve and I guess I am used to cooking, used to making things ready, but Simon says, “Sit.” Cade says, “Sit”. I realize I’m afraid of them screwing things up, that I am like my mother who wore herself to the bone because she wouldn’t trust other people to do cooking or cleaning because God forbid it would turn out differently than she liked. She controlled and controlled till there was nothing left of her, and in her weariness she fell into a deeper and deeper sleep until she was gone. Even on Christmas Day I stop to think about her and I am so sad and so angry at the same time because none of this had to happen. When Loretta the greeter at Wal Mart says, “You can’t get mad at God. God always knows what he’s doing,” I agree. But God wasn’t the one who ignored signs of slipping health or kept things to himself. God was not the one who left me, left us, in the blink of an eye and died in an instant.
The snow is white and winks with crystals and the sky is the sharpest, brightest blue. Isaiah pours me a drink and sits on the other side of the fire with me.
“I know how you feel. One minute angry as hell, one minute sorry, one minute thinking the world could not possibly be more beautiful than it is.”
One minute wondering why there isn’t music, the next exalting in James Brown Funky Christmas, Santa Claus Come Straight to the Ghetto, the song white folks have never heard, the next moment listening to the solemn pronouncements of old Latin hymns, Of the Father’s Love Begotten. Natus Hodie, Adeste Fideles.
When DJ and Rob and Josh arrive, when Jason arrives with his trim beard, merry eyes, his large hug, his “Don, I heard, I’m so sorry,” the food is coming to the table.
“I remember when my mother died,” Jason says frankly, “and I didn’t talk about it to anyone. Maybe you’ll talk with me after dinner.”
“I hear you’ll be in town for a while.”
“Longer than I thought,” he says, “And more frequently.”
“Everyone should like that,” I assure him. I add, “I will like it. Family should be close. We should be close as possible. We only have so much time.”
This is the largest damn turkey I’ve ever seen. I wonder that it can be so juicy. Sweet potatoes with pecans and brown sugar baked like a candy shell, broccoli in cheese and cheesy bacon Brussels sprouts because Simon insists on it. Quinoa that no one accounts for and wild rice and mushrooms and white rice, and I think of gumbo that is not there, but that will be here come New Years, because life goes on, years go on. And Melanie has brought a great hen, and someone, I’m not sure who, a trout that I was not expecting but looks delicious, and there is cheesecake and pumpkin pie and apple pie and my nephew DJ’s attempt at a plum pudding. We all say it looks wonderful. Josh, who I think is his boyfriend, insists that it is and then makes a joke that takes DJ out of his momentarily embarrassed mood. Jason and Frey, like good fathers, both decide to be the first to taste the plum pudding. They declare it delicious and proudly Isaiah pushes a piece toward me. I do my duty as a cousin and then my eyes pop open.
“Oh, my God, well, that’s it DJ, you’re going to be helping us in the kitchen from now on. You’ve been holding out.”

In the beginning of the world days are short. By four o clock the blue sky is deepening and darkening and shadows ride across the snow. I am glad to not be going anywhere tonight, and glad of everyone in this house. In days of old, green boughs were hung, singing and drinking done at this delicate time of year, and everyone buckled down while the spirits of the cold and chaos moved outside, but inside, where there was love and music, song and food, was safety.
There is a knock at the door and in their best arrive Brian, the one time lover and his husband Chad, the one time enemy. We, all three of us, kiss on the cheeks, and I embrace Chad and feel the embrace of Brian that reminds me of so many times before.
“We haven’t talked in a while,” Chad notes as I take his coat, and I say, “We’ll have to remedy that. In fact, let’s do so tonight.”
They insist that they are not hungry, but when I put, “just a bit of turkey” on plates for both of them, they see how good mashed potatoes and pudding and a role would taste too, and then they are in the midst of it all along with the latecomers, my cousin Sharon and Aunt Loretta, Loretta, my mother’s sister.
“ I can feel Adrienne,” she says, “I can feel her presence right here.”
I cannot. But she is welcome. Before these days are over Deanna will be here and probably Cade’s mother, and before these days are over I will have a meal with Chad and Brian in their own house.

I once heard a man telling his story to the family he stayed with. He had been a refugee and he told them about his trip from Syria across the sea, and into Europe, over mountains and across borders. He spoke of losing family members and seeing people whose children had died, whose spouses and friends had drowned in the sea or frozen in the mountains.
He said, “When it happens it is sad, but there is no time to mourn. Your mind will not hold the space for it. You just have to set it aside and move on.”
Surely this is what all those people on the prairie, crossing the continent in Conestoga wagons did, the women who at their husbands’ graves took a second husband because they needed one and the circuit preacher wouldn’t be around for another half year. One wonders what damage such forgetting of wounds did the psyche of a nation.
Kaddish is said for the year, the Jewish twelve months, after the time of the passing of sister, brother, spouse, father… mother. It took me a long time to realize I was making peace, slowly, between what was gone, and what remained, between an imperfect heaven and a wounded earth. All death is jagged. We have to search of a resolution. The would will be wounded as long as we forget to make resolution, and resolution will be gone as long as we forget how to mourn. When people knew a wound untreated festered, ruined, abscessed into obsession they wailed for Nine Nights, they sang the Book of the Dead. They sat on the floor in sackcloth, lifted their voices and sang Kaddish. They knew that a grief observed was a grief shared and that such a grief could slice open the ill bound wounds of those who had never learned to mourn. And so they created silence and shiva, and a space for weeping even while living. They did not reject their sorrow, but watered what was gone with the tears for what would not be. And though saltwater grows nothing but a mangrove, those tears brought from death life. From an old world, old people brought about the creation of the new world. So though they had to move, live, dream, love, make love, they made time to lay low on the ground and weep. They made a testament to their grief, that they might, in time, come to something new. Thus have I done. Thus will I continue to do.


THE END