she gives wings to grief

this.

I also remember how Wendy told me I would need to be careful not to feed him too much or too little. Too much would make it difficult to die, too little would make it more painful; the same with hydration. I thought that would be an impossible task, but I don’t think he lived too many days after that. I do remember my surprise when he asked for bagel pizzas and soda pop just hours before his seizure and he hadn’t eaten by mouth for days. I heated them up, made them into small bites, and he ate the whole thing. His last supper.

I remember sitting one afternoon, just him and me, making a list of all his favorite things. Like movies, and blueberry jelly bellies. I was compiling the list to use at his memorial service, but I didn’t tell him that.

After Tommy died, and I could find my voice, I made another round of telephone calls. His teachers came over from the school including Mr. Shipman, his favorite kindergarten teacher for whom he had a special love, and they all sat with his body for a bit. My sister, Marilyn arrived from San Francisco about an hour and a half after he died. I was so glad to have her there…no body else could have helped me send his body to the mortuary.

Grandma and Grandpa Smith came from their campground just moments after he left. They helped to get calls made to the Smith side of the family.

Wendy and Bill called the coroner and made sure the body was properly identified. And then they left. I asked them to come to the memorial service, and I received notes from all three, but I never saw them again.

Tommy’s body lay in his bed for about 5 hours. I’d come in and out of the room, putting away the clean laundry in his drawers. When I finished the last bit I told him, “It’s all clean now, you can pack a bag to go home.” I was glad to have time to see him still, not asleep. I could feel his body lose it’s heat. It helped me lose my fear of death.

and this.

the end begins here.

and i would like to scream for her - i am a mother too - nononono, it is not fair,
it is not fair, change it, make it not so, make it undone. Please. i am a mother too.

the point is---

grief.

---

stand up

Dear Bitch,

No I will not stop blogging nice things about you. Do you know why? Moxie. Your guts that's why. Because you write your way vulnerable, bite into what's wrong and taste it, cryoutloud and seize on shag carpets in a fit of mortal so-human justice when Those People with their Armor-Alled posts come to this place and try to outshine our worn tattered leather souls.

Their shiny-protected-stronger-than-tortise-shell bullshit, in that know-it-all way they have, are no match for you. They will not show their wounds, their open oozing lesions because those wounds cannot be monetized. Because they may scare the Audience away by being who they are. And then what? No money no honey. Then what? No fans no plans. Oh dear!

Pretenders.

You stood there and said Hey Now, Waitaminute, when few other women would. Shelley did. Ronni did. Marianne did. Toby did. Even harder for the men to do: misyoongenentoitousetists!

Have you stopped beating your fucking CAT YET? WELL HAVE YOU?

Did you laugh? You-R-Evil.

That is why.

Why do you think? I know you know the scary places, not the scary places where people might come in your house or yard or workplace and off you, but THOSE scary places where you are your own intruder.

You heal my inner boogie man. What? You want I should go away? No way, sister.

Kiss me. I'm crazy.

----

no home

no home no home to go home to
stuffed bear
where
miles and miles far
don't send me away
the first time they
send me, i wonder
who will take care of me?

go home no home
write my way through
find ground
that doesn't make me quake
take me away
don't take me
who will take care of me?

faceless ghosts burn
my face
fire for
fingers
running through me
too hot to stand
can't get out of my
own skin.

stop!

is there an ending, another beginning?
the seconds unbearable,
waiting.

What Are You Doing April 20th?

It's a friday. You must be free. If not, get free.

Come by allied ALL DAY, where I'll be writing original poetry and prose, realtime, in memory of my father, who died of pancreatic cancer in his 30s.

Your job? HELP ME RAISE $500 for PANCAN!

Sponsor me in The First Annual BLOG POETRY FEST for PANCAN here on allied.

All funds go to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PANCAN), an advocacy group for patients and families dealing with pancreatic cancer. The event is set up through FirstGiving in conjunction with PanCan to raise awareness and funds for continued research, education, and advocacy.

More information will be coming soon, but in the mean time, inspire me and save the date.

...

ire

Alphonse "Tootie" Dimino
December 16, 1930 - March 17, 1969


the school of the dead

As I waver between life and death in my own hospital bed, 30 years after his death, on his birthday in fact, I am somehow not surprised. Terrified, yes. Facing death is not something I'm prepared for. My new baby is just 9 weeks old. How did I get here?

When you lose a parent early in life, you wonder if you'll make it past the age they were when they left you. Every child of death wonders this. That's why I'm not surprised to be near death myself at 36, the same age he was when the luck of the Irish eluded him.

In my hospital bed, hemorrhaging uncontrollably, I am violently enrolled in what Cixous calls, "The School of Dreams." Because I don't die; I live. But in walking the line between here and there, I dream. Images as vibrant as those five-year-old memories, scenes that will carry me through the next half of my life.

Bleeding to near death. Watching helplessly as my lifeforce leaves my body, playing tricks with my mind and taking small pieces of my soul with it, my sanity too. The emptiness is unfathomable. As a new mother, instincts of self-protection battle with the responsibility of caring for this new life. I don't want to see her; don't want her to see me, not like this. My one gift to her: protect her from images of her dying parent--I know how they haunt.

But she comes to visit just before surgery. My sister carries her down the elevator toward the operating room, this small life that has almost cost me mine.

Anxiety gives way to resolve. Once again, I cannot control. I cannot fix myself, I cannot fix my family. I let go, I go to sleep. And I dream.

Dreams of pain. Dreams of loss--where is my baby? My husband is gone--no, there he is. And I hear talking, outside of myself. Again.

I am a dream within a dream. A death within a death.

-------------------------

the school of the dead 2

Cixous writes: "For a long time I lived through my father's death with the feeling of immense loss and childlike regret, as in an inverted fairy tale: Ah, if my father had lived! I naively fabricated other magnificent stories, until the day things changed color and I began to see other scenes--including everything I could imagine that was less consoling--without overinvesting."


I tell all my friends growing up that my father died of a gallbladder operation. Because no one tells me otherwise, even though he lived another six months after that operation. My fourth grade teacher tells me it is very unusual for someone to die of a gallbladder operation. She says, "Are you sure?" And I wonder if I'm hiding something.

I'm 21 before I ask.

My mother tells me the truth then, about the day he had his operation and the doctors took her in a room, there by herself, to tell her that her husband's gallbladder is fine, but his pancreas isn't. The diagnosis is pancreatic cancer. The prognosis, much as it is today, omonous. Six months maybe. My mother tells me the news rips her apart, and her first and strongest instinct is to wail for her own father. "Bring my daddy here. He'll know what to do. I need him." But there is no comforting to be done for this family.

There will never be comfort again.

-------------------------

voicelessness

because, there is no bypass for loss.

....

Unprotected and vulnerable, there are no words to clothe you, to make you beautiful. You are raw, revealing yourself by the clumsiness in your covering. we live naked, a rack of peacock feathers can't cover your scars.

I see every one of them in the space between your words.

.

whatisthis radio silence

i am not sure why i have felt uninspired to blog.

you see, i read thru bloglines and every one in my aggregator is coming up short, posting about the same shit over and over. sorry if that pisses off the duly aggregated. i don't care where you're flying next. thank god for my blogroll. the news vs the new.

news is more and more the same -- web 2.0 dance, political and cultural zerohood.
new is art loss death scream -- joy floats.

i'm no fan of march. march is not my month. st patrick is a motherfucker, took my daddy and my grandma, patron saint of fuck off. march 17 disappeared me.

maybe that's it. maybe that's what has left me too empty to blog, too ordinary to care, too pragmatic to explode, to hurt to bandage.

holding down the fort.

like always.

need to soar to sing again need to slice and peel again, to feel again

but it's too big too real.

stop taking me down, march.