The Present

In the present I'm sitting in church. I'm writing the school principal a scolding letter. I'm with friends for an Easter dinner. I'm making Hazel a lovely plate of fruit. I'm surfing Facebook for something to pick me up and finding crap! I'm making a lunch for school. I'm drinking a cup of tea with a bit of honey. I'm being hugged too tightly by Jody or having him pop my toes. I'm cradling Hazel. I'm smoothing Nick's hair. And in between all of this present reality, tears slip out and I roll my eyes. I wipe at them with the hankie Gin gave me at Dad's funeral and I'm tired. Tired of salty burning eyes, tired of headaches, tired of things falling through the cracks because the present can't seem to hold me. I slip back to standing by his hospital bed at a loss for words to tell him how I love him. Instead I tell him thank you for bringing me cedar for my fence. He gently nods his head. His pain is unbearable for him and even more so for me. He and I stand in the foyer of the Hospital and he says "you've always had such a presence, when you burst into a room everyone sits up expectantly, you're so graceful and beautiful." I sit in the back seat of Gin's little car and we are stuck in traffic, Ginny sighs explosively in frustration that she can't just whisk him home to rest. He lifts his hand and puts it over Ginny's. Tears slip down her cheek. No words. He knows we are all at a loss. I hug him again and say I have to catch a plane. His eyes look at me searching. He says he loves me. I know he wonders if he will die before my next visit and my heart wants to explode. Because I know he won't and wish he could in a way. My constant fear being not only that we can't save him but if we can't how long must he suffer. He's sitting at the table, so frustrated. He wants his brain to clear but he can't muddle through the drug fog. He says he's frustrated that he can't think and he knows I'm leaving. How he wanted to just spend the morning with me. Oh Daddy. How your thin shoulders and sallow skin break me. How did this happen? Why did this happen? I sit and read to him from Acts. He closes his eyes to concentrate. He is happy. He loves the words that fall over us. They are miraculous, beautiful and poetic. He won't eat. We try everything. He takes so many pills at our behest and I rack my brain for something to break the cycle. I get his pill bowl and put in a nut, a pea, a cranberry, and some other tiny items and announce it's time for his pills again. He sighs then I hand it to him. He sits and stares, then his wry smile breaks out and we all chuckle. He calls me Boogle and I wish wish wish that every memory from the end were those of us all trying to make him smile and make him feel loved. No I know we couldn't have. Anyone losing someone so suddenly feels that they must fight, it's too hard to believe you've lost the battle before it began. So we cajole, beg, argue and do everything we can to save him. And he watches us silently knowing the futility but without the heart to ask us to let it all rest. I know it's not the present but it feels like it is. It feels like it's all happening every day. Little pieces slip in as each action of my life reminds me of him. It's a treasure and a curse that I can't go to the grocery store without thinking of him always getting his cart from the parking lot instead of at the cart return. He's everywhere making each simple action of life unique and different. I think maybe some people grieve when they see a place or a thing to remind them of someone but I grieve seeing each action he coined. I can't go anywhere or do anything without seeing him.