Slumber Party

4/27/14

Slumber party

If God or the world see fit or I have the strength to hold out, this afternoon I don't believe I could ask for more of passing then a fine clear day, and those I love close at hand, having had the chance to make their peace with my own going. 

Grandpa died behind a sealed door jealously guarded by hospital staff and an eldest son who seemed to me then too officious, against all of which it took the weight of forty some odd cousins grandkids great-grands sisters-in-law grafted familial by time - and of course the six more sons and daughters to prevail with the urgent notion: That second to the body itself, the next thing in line to lay claim to the space of death over a person is his family. Not this institution that doesn't seem to want to just let an old man and his family let him die. 

Today it's different. 

I suppose having a loved one die in the house you share is next to haunting. But they remain yours, and no dumb persons or things claiming to precedence in over their space and whom to allow into it.

You take the pulse of the dying one's preference and, in this case, the husband: Three young children, gently guided and shored but allowed each to find their own way each through grief and to their mother’s side; the mother (grandmother) bereaved now barely three years of her husband (rock) forced to say goodbye to her last, her youngest, her “bonus baby”; alongside her the sisters (daughters), their claim to proximity the fruit of patient attendance (the ugly monotony: chemotherapy, getting dressed, draining the fluid off the lungs to make space again for air) silently presents itself for recognition. She still present faintly like the whispers she still utters, but with greater wind in the women like branches hedging her in fierce claims of love and presence; the brothers (uncles) brought in (always after consultation among her two sisters with her husband and their own). Presence in her passing mediated to this network of blood by their own judgement. 

We others and our grief wait attentively. Are called in after the hospice nurse has called in, to notify us all signs point to "Soon." 

A gently and haphazardly ordered procession after husband children mother sisters have each a piece of time together then alone at their preference to whisper all their lives together out away with her as the oxygen machine turns a sibilant hiss and flop, and her larger gasps punctuate the consistent shallow rise and fall of her belly. 

She has ceased to whisper, but the hospice nurse assures us hearing is the last to go. 

We are all in their bedroom, all forty years of her in a rocker; we gather, cry, love, console - Tina: “I've been seeing Grandpa"; tears. And after this and we all move out to give her space, a sense of relaxation as we know that we have had from her while still with us about as much as any of us can ask: To say in word and looks, alone and in pairs, and then all at once, "Goodbye" 

(And in song - the only way somehow to force the words to Edelweiss through my teeth imagining Christopher Plummer’s Von Trapp singing through the memory of his wife. Please tell me you will all sing to me when I leave you?)

A cooler of drinks; food from all quarters; two tents; thinking to myself, should not most of us leave? But no one is making any clear indication this this is how it feels. 

I come back after a walk and wish the young girls (nieces, cousins) gathered around her easy chair would just stop singing - so she doesn't have to keep fighting to stay around for them. But maybe it's just the time they need more of to say goodbye. Maybe they're calling up the people she's been talking to all week; or maybe Grandpa's there again like he's been showing up to Christina these last few days: Telling aunt Mary he can't wait to carry her over to him; and Tina telling Mary and telling all of us that she doesn't go alone. 

Tina, our oldest sister, who spoke words at Grandpa’s side that sounded more than anything I’ve ever heard like someone speaking for my own heart. 

Grandpa who told Bea and Joyce he wasn't afraid. 

What consolation, at the last, and whether you believe or know or don't what more or less or anything is waiting, to know you have a predecessor in love and in the hard crossing. That you aren't the first of your own world. 

And if gathering about me for love on a fine clear day they likewise find each other around my cooling form and pass on to a great celebration, I don't know what more I could ask for in passing. 

Watching Mary pass away with us I felt less afraid of death than I ever have before. 

Midshipman's Log: Spardate 10K 4-- (?)

"Will Alexander holds a bachelor's in English and Spanish, and a masters in English, and has studied at the University of Salamanca, Ave Maria College, and various programs in the SEC. He divides his time between teaching, cultural studies, acting, travel, writing, travel writing, and a variety of other avocations. He currently resides in Oxford, Mississippi with two marvelous housemates and his familiar--a beautiful white street mutt rescued by a former professor."

Have discovered some material from the aforenoted in an artifact referred to as a "Guidebook" along with some further scribblings. A bit neurotic, but interesting NTL...

Remains

More bobby pins,

More second class relics of you.

Broadcast in the bathroom,

Making noises in the vacuum.

Two mysteriously shuffle

Out of a pile of receipts on the desk.
(Not only when and where

Like saint's rags wearing something of their spark,

Each bit of brass in the bed sheets

Pricking with your absent charm.

Other Lovers

We have to be careful

Divulging our selves.

When and where matter,

Not only the to-whom.

To whom follows when,

In the way a body opens.

But also, more even than when

(Building in an ebb and larger return of:

"I-am-also..."

"Oh is-this-you?"),

Is the in-this-mood.

Which waits for that you

Who can be trusted

With this me;

That will not

Later or now

Make the saying "I"

And welcoming saying "You"—

Will not threaten

Now or later

Not compromise

The saying that has already been

And is continuing.

And maybe this is why forgive

Is a real word:

Because lacking the skill

To match saying and being

And to whom,

But in-that-mood)

With an other,

We both fail.

As when she

(That you)

Told him

(That me)

Distressed

Of a tragic

Or a simply past

"One touched me."

Different than when he

(Unregenerate)

Confessed

"I touched this one."

Memory a separate burden,

Long term yield of seasons

Of ready-to-know and already-shared

And still-becoming

With the I or You

That can't live

On reasons only,

But also the gut—

Which, in the sharing,

Won't be ignored.

And perhaps this pain

Of apparently inevitable disjunction,

And the continued saying even tainted so

Is at least one thing that we mean by love.

Digits

You see. I know how this is going to turn out.

It’s going to end with us making out

In a corner somewhere

Coming close to having sex. 

(Probably having sex)

But I don’t want that.

I'm not saying anything.

But I know:

We’ll be dancing

I can’t help myself when I begin drinking.

And then we’ll be dancing.

I’ll touch you. And remember.

And feel how nice it is to touch you,

(It will be very nice to touch you)

Especially since I am sure you are

So intelligent. And attractive.

(Though I can’t certainly remember)

It will be very nice to touch you,

And feel how beautiful and, maybe,

Electric.

Sometimes. 

It is so strange.

The firm movement of skin under touch.

To squeeze,

Feel the (rub) tension.

Like junior high science class:

Cornstarch, water, borax—you.

And it’s like drinking. It’s like riding a bike.

Like watching television. 

It’s a zip line

And strange—

Your face is so very strong.

It’s beautiful. It’s ruddy.

Something, somewhere...

(I certainly remember something)

And your cheekbones!

Don’t you see?

We’ll be dancing.

Then I’ll be sliding along a wire.

Then we’ll be riding in a train.

(The groove is run deep)

Then I will become so mystified by your back.

(You doubtless have an amazing back)

(It will be very nice to touch you)

It will doubtlessly mystify me.

Fascinate me. Macerate me.

I become intrigued—and very passionate.

(So I am told)

I don’t believe I'm conceited.

A Peruvian girl once—

Oh never mind!

I bet I’ll discover something painful.

Oh, then it’s over.

(I become intrigued you see)

Listen, I can call you.

We could go on dates. I’ll buy you Raisinets.

(Please just don't answer that text)

_Midshipman's Log_, "Spardate 10K 929":

"Have determined that synesthesia, tetrachromacy, achromatopia, and the sensory-perceptual experiences routinely reported from altered states (among other exceptions to normative human sensing, cognition, and expression) corroborate to form yet another decisive blow against the nefarious delusion of the primacy and non-contingent nature of human "reason." Cary Wolfe correctly emphasizes the 'specific forms of embodiment and neurophysiological organization' which condition the emergence of language and therefore thought. My dog creates tri-layered scent maps through which he sees the backyard. The fruit fly, the mantis shrimp and I do not inhabit the same universe. That is all for today. Goodnight Kant."

Signed,
Foot

NTS: research Russian mnemonist "S."