Edition #1

the low hanging sun of mid morning
casts long, relaxed shadows
stirring withing my romantic frame
a glowing desire to photograph.

it's warm tungsten rays
are the lamplight by which
i travel into
the colorul expressions of yann martel.

rhythmic movement of pacific wave
sets the tone
for todays remaining hours;
while kisses of father morning
invite me to remain in the riches
of this precious present.
 

     June is the month to graduate in. Kids chase each other with yearbooks trying to get as many signatures as possible. Everything you do in school becomes the "last time," you'll ever sit through English class, or the last Biology test. Then cars in the parking lots are covered with spray paint in the school colors with initials and years. Soon kids put on their gowns, wrap the cords around their necks, adjust their tassels and smile as they are handed their diplomas.

     I have three days until I graduate. I am twenty-seventh out of 217. In the eyes of some that is excellent, to others it is pathetic. Still, I look back at the past four years with a sense of disbelief. Things have changed.

     Freshmen year I was preppy; I wore short skirts, played volleyball, and dated the captain of the basketball team. Sophomore year I wore all black, dyed my hair black, and dated an artist. Junior year I wore long flowing skirts and dated a jerk. This year I've tried to just be myself. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, who I want to be, and how I'm going to get there.

     Marching practice at my school is long. I stood in a hallway with about a hundred girls, all dressed in white dresses and balancing on heels. We leaned against the wall and sat on the floor. Without our normal clothes we all look alike, like flowers. I lean up against one wall with the girl who is sleeping with my ex-boyfriend, the jerk. On the other side is the girl who was in my Bio class. We chat about nothing.

     I wonder about people. Some of them I barely know. Is four years long enough to truly know someone? We're all so different, a mish-mash of disconnected people who could barely stand each other. Yet now we were all the same. All of us in white dresses and white shoes with our hair left down, we sat in a long hallway and thought about the future, about the past, about how the school should be air-conditioned.

     Maybe in the big moments of life we're really all the same. The jock and the goth have the same fears. All these girls I barely know, yet right now I feel as if they're my sisters. Then the music begins to play, and we stand and march out in step with each other.
 

     Rewind. I look at the snapshot of myself at 18, standing in the street outside my Aunt Gert's house. Squinting a little at the faded colors of the photograph, I trace the contours of my arms, breasts, waist. I do like how the green, long-underwear shirt clings. My frame looks smaller than I remember. It is the summer of '72' but those hip hugger jeans frayed at the cuffs, the wide brown leather belt, navy blue clogs, and that burnt-orange, suede bag say I am living in the 60's. I have a casual look in this grainy, orange-tinted photo. Left foot crossed over my right, the tips of my straight, blond hair, parted in the middle, it clusters to one side, covering my left breast. I balance on the curb. Both arms hang loose at my side. One hand holds the bag. The straps escape, dangling just a few inches from the pavement.

     I search my face again. I can't see my eyes well enough to answer the question of how I am holding up after losing my mom. My smile is slight, not the full-teeth, beaming like more recent photos. A folded white paper continues beyond the fingers of my right hand. A list? A letter? Something occupies my time the summer after high school graduation, the first without my mom. I could not imagine then that this something would cling to my frame each and every day over the next thirty-five years?

     The photo reveals nothing about the branch that broke my family tree just six months earlier. It doesn't hint that cancer cracked the limb and let it fall to the ground. Still. Alone.

     Perhaps the folded white paper has scribbled notes of all the things I never wanted to forget about my mom. I do remember staring up into her brown eyes, wishing mine were brown, not blue. Styling her dark brown hair, I would hold a strand of mine next to hers and wish our colors matched. I am thankful now that I did get her "Black Irish" olive complexion. I never burn like most of my friends. Not sure about the long, narrow nose that I inherited. I am sure that I will never forget her crooked, wry, thin smile that invited my friends to hang out at our house rather than their own. I have learned since that it masked her every day struggle. She tolerated pain, speculated all round her body about causes, and pressed down her cancer fear.

     What troubles me most is that I have forgotten so much about her--how she smelled, the jokes she told, the stories she read, what made her laugh. But some memories have worn a path that remains raw; they are written in my body. I have little success in erasing the one memory that rewinds and plays again involuntarily yet deliberately--the day she died.

     It's Sunday afternoon. We're all tired--Dad, my brother Denny, Aunt Gert, Aunt Jean, Papa. We have been in the hospital at Mom's bedside since yesterday when the ambulance brought her from our home town of Waterloo to the St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. After examining her, the doctor told us in a flat monotone, that the tumor has grown at a rapid rate and covered the front of her brain. She would not regain any of her functions. And worse, they doubted she would even last a day.

     Tonight, we sit in uncomfortable metal chairs, standing, pacing, then sitting at the edge of her bed looking into her face or touching her hand as if at that moment, on cue she will open her eyes and tell us, "I'm fine. Don't worry." But the tube forcing her lips into an unnatural o-shape mocks us. She can tell us nothing. Her eyes do not flutter a reassuring hope. Each round of sit, stand, pace, look, and touch makes it harder for me to resist lifting her shoulders up off the bed and shaking her. I want to plead "Mom, please, wake up. WAKE UP! I need you. I know you told Marie, you just wanted to get the kids raised. I AM NOT RAISED!" I shake my head from side to side and chuckle. My dad shoots me a look, but I just can't care. I want to talk to my mom. I want to rewind my life and say "yes" to my mom when she asks me to go shopping, when she asks me to clean the bathroom, when she asks me to do anything. Instead I look at her face, whisper "I love you," and begin my mindless ritual once again.

     It is getting late. My dad tells the nurse, "We're going to go get something to eat at Mac's. Here is the phone number. Please call us if anything changes." I touch her arm, kiss her cheek and say a confident "See you later mom." And we leave, just like that.

     It is December in Rochester. The cold air nips at our nostrils and fingertips as we walk to the restaurant. Our food had just arrived when the waitress comes over to our table and tells my dad that there is a call for him. He looks at her and doesn't respond for a moment as if she had asked us if our food was okay. A breath catches in his throat. He shares his worried look with all of us and jumps up to follow the waitress as she heads back to the counter. I watch dad walk to the phone and put it to his ear. I search his face for information after he begins speaking. Then I see it. His lips and eyes crunch toward each other, the way he held back tears when my brother died. Then as if he knew I was watching, he turns away. I watch and wait, my burger suspended in midair. My eyes trace the crossing lines of his red and blue plaid shirt across his back, down his arm, watching the movement of his hand as he takes the phone away from his ear and hangs it up. I'm lost in plaid as he pays the bill and returns his wallet to his back pocket. It's not until Aunt Gert barks, "Patricia, let's go," that I realize everyone else has donned their coats, hats, and gloves.

     We catch up with Dad at the front door of the restaurant and I barely makes out his words as he mutters, "Her vitals have dropped. We need to get back to the hospital immediately." No one says a word during the walk back.

     Two nurses and a doctor approach us at the nurses' station and ask us to follow them. It is not until we turn right, that I know we are not headed to mom's room. Instead they open the door to a room, the size of a large closet, bare white walls, nothing to distract us.

     "I am very sorry to tell you that your mother passed away at 2:30." He must take those words back. The room seems smaller now, the walls close in. I stare at the doctor's mouth. I say to myself, "No way!" Out loud I say "Are you sure?" "Blah, Blah, Blah" his mouth moves to answer. My mouth quivers shut. I press my fists tight into my cheek bones to dam the tears. But one by one in rapid succession, they rev with the images of each room in our house emptied of my mom's laugh and smile. Her morning wake up kiss, already fading, is sucked away, like water down the drain.

     The pause button engages automatically. This moment is suspended for a few seconds then released to a slow motion burden. We huddle together, as if touching just one part of another's body--arm, shoulder, neck, head--anything will hold us together, keep us from being weighed down with grief. And then we cry--all in our own way. I can't make out the difference because it all adds up to the same lonely, helpless cry.

     The doctor's mouth moves again. This time to say, "We would like your permission to perform an autopsy to learn what we can about cancer." My brother has been standing back from the group, now steps forward, "No, NO, you are not going to cut up my mom. NO!" He protests her death more than anyone. He is her first son. He is the one blessed with her brown eyes, dark brown hair, olive complexion. The one who looks "just like his mom." The one she yearned to understand and get close to. The one she always worried about. The one I wanted to be.

     When the words "passed away" crossed the doctor's lips did we ask to see her? Did she wake up before she died? Did she open her eyes and look for us? Did she say anything? Did she feel like we abandoned her?

 

Twenty Years
The ringing of the phone, early in the morning.
I glance at the blinking screen-I make a grab for it.
A chirpy, familiar voice on the other end-
Suddenly realizes I am not.
"I woke you-let me call you back later," she says.
"No-don't hang up!!" I exclaim, quickly reassuring her.
There is no one I would rather have waking me up,
So early in the a.m.

We chat, we giggle, we share stories, we philosophise,
From and of our respective lives.
We reminisce about school days, childhood, old times.
On the other end of that long distance line,
Is a person most dear to me.
Someone I have not seen in over five years.
Yet, the time and distance have little meaning for us.
The bond remains, as does the love.
Twenty years of friendship,
twenty-four of shared history.
Nothing can alter or lessen that.
We started out bitter school yard rivals. One thought the other a brainiac, the other thought the first a wildcat.
Yet that old addage of opposites attracting-well, it happened.
Lives lived in close cohesion became those in different cities, different countries, now different continents.

A long conversation later,
I lay back on the pillows,
Snuggle into my warm blanket.
Enjoy the feeling of that conversation.
Realize that nothing quite compares to it,
To having a friend of, and for, twenty years.
Not just a friend-the friend!
I have many other dear friends.
Spanning early childhood, teen years, college life.
But not another who can match the ties she and I share.
So here's to you, my dearest and oldest friend, the sister I never had,the one who
remains in my heart, despite the thousands of miles that separate us.
And here's to the next twenty years...