I’ve been gone for a while, and I’m still submerged beneath a layer of something not quite discernible to me. Like swimming under our pool’s large solar cover late at night, unable to find the edges and come up for air.
There was a loss I knew was inevitable and imminent, despite how many thousands of times from youth to adulthood I made the sign of the cross three times, kissed my fingertips thrice, then sent my fingers flailing back through the often endless web of compulsion, whispering: “May she live forever and ever and ever, please let her live forever and ever and ever”. The naive and romantic part of me believes that it worked since she got to live 101 years on this planet. In my present mind, that is forever.
I woke up that morning to an immediate and acute awareness that the world felt palpably emptier. My eyes fixed on one spot of the wall while its periphery sunk and fell away, feeling so heavy that all I could do was close my eyes and go down with it, and so I did. Sleep washed over me again.
When I finally got up that day, I picked up the phone that rang moments later and unwillingly slipped into the heart-fissuring pause awaiting me from the other end. Was I engulfed in darkness or did I close my eyes? I don’t recall. But in that dark room I recalled her face days earlier resting on the pillow that would hold the weight of her last breath, I saw my aching face leaning into hers closely, telepathically repeatedly asking her “But where will you go when you leave us?”
Next moment of awareness, I’m in my car looking at my hands fixed on the steering wheel. I watch her slender fingers gliding over the patterns of ink along my wrists once again, as she tells me she likes my tattoos. It makes the asphalt before me bend and warp until the tears depart and refill. There is a warmth of beauty inserting itself in that moment: reminiscent of driving in the rain without the wipers on, watching familiar shapes bloat and bulge before bleeding their bifurcated exit beneath the pressure of speed.
There are a few snapshots of memory left from this otherwise emotionally obscured day: the older gentleman taking to my side once I got out of my parked car. I’m thanking him now for not leaving me any time to wonder how I got there, because I’d ignored the inner voice urging me that perhaps I shouldn’t be driving quite yet. I no longer recall what we spoke about, just that he escorted me on the long walk from car to tent. At the time I thought I didn’t want to interact with anyone, but in hindsight he was a gift of the moment.
Inside this tent, Māori performers stood shoulder to shoulder at the edge of a stage, turning partially to stomp their left feet in unison, stepping back, then turning partially to stomp their right feet in unison. My spirit tumbled in my body, a quaking of interconnectedness sustained my limbs those moments observing in the chair. Someone behind the stage quickly moved from edge to edge of the tent’s walls, rolled them upwards, and tied them in place. A warm breeze eventually arrived and ran itself along my cheeks as my eyes focused past them into the clearing and treetops beyond.
She spent the largest portion of her life just 2 miles past the top of their heads. I wandered off in my thoughts, pondering the corruption of land, the imprints of our energies and philosophizing whether or not the value of hers was any less significant in this context, historically speaking. I shuddered the unwanted thought off of me and focused my eyes again to the stage. Now all of the performers but one stood at the rear edge of the stage.
To introduce her next song she leaned into the microphone and told us that upon death, Māori believe our enduring spirit (wairua) makes an ascending journey back to the sky, to its family of light, transforming into a star where it remains overhead as a spiritual guardian, watching over its loved ones and providing guidance. I tilted my head back, lifting my gaze directly overhead through the white canvas ceiling, through the daylight directly to the star-coated night sky. Her words provided a soothing answer to my previous telepathic query, and became the day that the earth got a little emptier but the sky above got a little more full and bright.
[My grandmother is pictured on the right, emitting her starlight from the start]
For me, writing is like cleaning a dirty pane of glass. Mine was coated with suppression so thick, it took on a tar-like substance, and I’ve grown tired of its obscuration. It feels good to have taken my fingertips to tend to its cleaning right now, and I thank you for listening/reading.
So beautiful 🫂❤️😘