OK folks, I have left the planet. For the next few days you will be treated to a parade of creative talent from some of my dear, patient, talented readers. The Grand Marshall of this parade is Red Dirt Kelly and this beautiful, brave piece. Thanks so much Kelly for all you do!
The last time I visited my comrade Cathy’s dying friend in the hospital, we talked about angels. “Cathy” was also the dying friend’s name which made for some confusing conversations in the ICU unit.
The last time I visited my comrade Cathy’s dying friend in the hospital, we talked about angels. “Cathy” was also the dying friend’s name which made for some confusing conversations in the ICU unit.
The dying Cathy looked very much
like Susan Sarandon. She rested her head on the hospital pillow and
toyed with the IV entry area on her arm while she whispered that she
believed an angel had visited her on an Indian Reservation in New
Mexico to deliver the message that she was ill. Her arm was hard to
look at, having turned approximately half purple by that point.
In my mind, the warm sunlight streaming
through the window lighting up her auburn hair was the Light,
and the disease turning her arm…and the rest of her body purple…was
the Dark. But the Light won when she breathed her last breath
because the dying Cathy finally smiled and the tension left her face.
She could rest now.
But my friend Cathy was a different
story. That night she got drunk and I sat in her living room
listening to her repeat stories about their friendship over and over.
At one point, I found some rollers in her bathroom, brought them
into the living room and begin putting them in my hair as a painfully
weak way to cause laughter and break the sadness.
Needing to walk around at some point,
we picked up a second bottle of wine and crossed the street, knocking
on the door of a female Methodist minister who had a labyrinth in her
back yard. We all three laughed when she answered the door with
rollers in her hair. The three of us, rollers dangling at all angles
from our hair and clothed in our bathrobes and slippers, began to
walk through the labyrinth in her back yard, singing drinking songs.
The minister and I watched our grieving Cathy as her sadness gushed
forth well into the morning hours.
I thought about that night and my
undone friend for three days. I was riveted by her ability to
announce her utter unraveling in front of the two of us.
Had I ever openly wailed and shown my
soft underbelly and pain so plainly to another human being? Even
before I finished articulating that question to myself in my head, I
knew the answer was: I have not.
The answer was still rolling around in
the soul-space of my brain like an echo around canyon walls when my
phone rang. It was my grieving friend and she needed help clearing
out the house of the deceased.
So I helped her in this task, all the
while observing her lingering hesitation over every object with some
degree of meaning attached. I was in the middle of observing her
decide which of the fifty potted plants to keep when she said, “Can
we go get dinner? I need an emotional break.”
Once again, she had exposed her
humanity by telling me she was at the limit of her “feeling”
capacity, brought on by the process of sorting her dead friend’s
belongings. And for the record, vulnerability does indeed breed
vulnerability. Each time my friend opened her soul to me, I felt
more like I could open mine to her.
So there we were, see, sitting across
from each other at a restaurant table spread with heavy cream and
butter pasta, grappling with the pieces of our lives which were
floating in the air around us. Somewhere around my head “my own
thoughts about death” drifted by, close to my speech center. It
was being levitated by my growing trust toward my dinner mate.
So I blurted, “If my husband and I die
simultaneously, will you PLEASE trash my vibrator? Cathy, I can’t
let anyone find our vibrator when they’re cleaning out our ‘death
things.’”
Her expression was a classic double
take followed by a grandiose belly laugh.
“Oh my stars, yes!!” she replied.
“Okay, you HAVE to remember this…it’s
in the bottom center drawer in his dresser, behind the socks. Will
you please remember??” I was intensely ensuring that the entire
pact would indeed be managed.
“Yes…” she started. “Got it.
Bottom center drawer, behind the socks…” Her face was cracked
with a full-blown smile and her eyes danced mischievously. “And
will you PLEASE come into the funeral home when they’re
preparing my body and pluck ALL the fuckwit hairs growing from my
chin? I hate my chin hairs and would be SO mortified if they were
sticking out of my face when people viewed my body!!”
“Absolutely,” I replied. “I. Am.
IN. I will pluck your chin hairs. Happy to do it.” I felt better
because I now also had a post-mortem task to contribute to the
dignity of my own friend’s future death.
The conversation took a hairpin curve
and by the time we walked out of the restaurant, we had talked about
how body fat could be disguised in caskets, how to manage crazy
family members in the funeral audience and what to make sure our
children knew should they falter from time to time after we died.
In other words, we managed all of our
personal anxieties about dignity and death over pasta, wine and the
essence of our dead friend’s memory floating about in the
restaurant air.
The bits and pieces of emotional
processing still remaining around our table – buoyed by our own
insecurities, were slowly descending to the floor when we left. They
did not follow us. Rather, they were swept up with the bread crumbs
by the wait staff after closing that night. We were finished with
them. For now.
That particular dinner conversation
happened three years ago. I still update her on any geographical
change in “the location” of the vibrator. And, she’s sent me
no less than two pair of excellent quality tweezers… “in case I’m
without a pair should she kick the bucket.”
Our promises are intact, as is now our
posthumous dignity.
Or, at least the pieces that about
which we are most concerned.
