eulogy

in less than twenty-four hours, i will lose you all over again.

on friday you called and said you were going to the hospital; in the months before something was shrinking in your voice, a sinister hand closing your throat, strangling your voice to a pained whine. that night i was sick. i was popping tylenol to keep the shakes away, to ward off the fever. i forced myself to eat some curly fries. outside the burger joint, a girl wearing ugg boots said something insipid and awful to her male companion. there was nothing to do but laugh. there were christmas lights. a sequence of dark rooms with dark walls. outside i finally got you on the phone. i balanced a drink on my knee while you told me your hands and ankles were swollen and maybe you had a fever, too, the kind that rages in your body, tylenol or not.

i remember those times when you felt faint and small beads of sweat would appear on your forehead and nose, just small pinpricks wavering in fluorescent light. in the grocery store, when you sat on the bench near the doors while i bagged our purchases.

and i can see you steering the car to the hospital, wavering on a dimly lit road, parking crookedly against the curb and shuffling into the emergency room.

you didn't mind the winter but you were a summertime type of gal. the sort who owned one pair of sneakers over the years i was blessed to know you and those you wore inconsistently, sloppily, flattening the backs so you could slip your feet into them. most of the time, you'd wear a pair of sandals, guarding your feet from the wet and cold with socks.

maybe you don't know, but when someone passes away in a hospital, the nurses put all the deceased's belongings into a bag. out of this bag i removed a sweater, an undershirt, a pair of pants and the thin belt that kept them on your waist, a pair of sandals, and those crummy hospital socks with grips on their bottoms, those raised white slip guards that never last long in the wash, breaking apart into undecipherable hieroglyphics. each article smelled like you. a particular odor i still cannot define. soft, and subtle, and warm.

and one time we were in the car, going somewhere, late again after a harrowing exit from the house; i said, "why can't we ever get anywhere on time?" and you said, "murphy's law." and i finally understood what that meant.

you had been there with me many times. an emergency room. a hospital bed. me vomiting in a trashcan and you calling me "poor darling," or else saying "i told you so," in more than four words.

the month before i lost you i ended up in the hospital for a stupid reason, but i couldn't get in touch with you except for to tell you i was on my way to the emergency room. so you had my brother locate me by process of elimination, calling all the hospitals near my apartment until you found me. i called you again when they finally released me, after sitting alone in a sterile room without knowing what was wrong and crying. and feeling like an idiot for crying. and you told me to stop on the way home and get some 7up and then tuck myself into bed. you knew me so well.

when they put you in the ground, i was in a hospital bed, looking at my heart moving in blurry gray waves on a small screen. the technician told me i had a beautiful heart.

i remember because i am scared to forget. when i lost that $100 bill in the store. when i stole something from my school's booksale and you pulled the disappointed card. when we went to see some african drummers and you got on stage and danced, you were unfettered in a way that i will never be. when you pulled yourself together and did what you had to do, regardless of consequence. when you refused to give up on those who'd wronged you. forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

or maybe the psalm 23, yea though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death. i will fear no evil. for thou art with me. the words leaving your mouth with such conviction while i stood next to you in the pew, fidgety in body, restless in mind.

they admitted you. you felt at peace. enough to sing. i said to my friends, "she's singing." i sipped my drink. i figured it meant you were feeling better. that everything would be all right.

i keep working to become the woman you want me to be. in my own way. in my own time. i battled with my femininity while you were always so sure of yours. red lips and high heels, showing off your assets. making dinner with one hand, a master's degree in the other. i didn't think you were wrong. i just thought i could never be the way you were. squared in shoulders. sharp of tongue. for a long time you tried to push me into a mold and i won't apologize for fighting you. those were lessons we both had to learn.

and you remember the last night we "talked," when i spoke and you made a forced choking noise and i said you should go to sleep. that i'd call you in the morning. i was so sure i would talk to you in the morning. everything would be fine. everything was always fine. i keep wondering if you were dying, then. if in that moment you were trying to tell me; if i misunderstood the lilt in your choke as one of acknowledgment instead of something else. the day before, you tried to tell me, "if i should die," and i cut you off. because you weren't going to die. i didn't want you to talk what way.

i want you to know that i worry no one will ever love me as much as you did.
and that i say goodbye to you every day; maybe if i say the word for the rest of my life it will make up for the one goodbye i never got to utter.
and that i am so proud to have called you my mother.
but at the same time i hope my life is nothing like your life.
sometimes i have to cry because i think of all the ways i wronged you.
and i hope you know that i am sorry, infinitely.

i will count the seconds, minutes, hours, days, years. i will hold them close. i know you exist in each one.