Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Fetch

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This is a case of rereading something I wrote a couple of years ago and only now found again.
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I don't know what actually happens when someone dies, but I do believe that nobody leaves alone; that there are guides, friends, angels, relatives, that appear to fetch us home.
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Oh my heart sister, my moon sister Renee. You are missed so so much. If and you have to leave, I know you will be fetched by the most loving of hands and hearts.
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Mostly, this is about loving someone and escorting her/him home......
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Fetch
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I’m not sure if I’m leaning over or looking down. From all appearances, this is a sad day every which way--solemn faces surrounding you with thin streams of small tears, slightly creased and tightened lips, some wispy nervous laughter spilling over you like a sprinkler in the August heat.
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They sit beside you, or at the bed’s edge, sometimes wiping your forehead with an ice cold cotton facecloth and regularly retelling your funny stories, including the one when you drove that guy’s motorcycle off the shorter than expected pier and then had to face his passive bewilderment.
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You are dying, and I have come to fetch you home. I promised you I would do this years ago, when we were still feeling our oats and opportunities, when we kind of promised each other we wouldn’t have to make that final trip alone. Of course, that was after I already knew from Michael, who had been a hospice guide two hundred times he said, that nobody leaves alone anyway. He told me one guy stepped into a small boat captained by his tattered and musty childhood teddy bear, who steered them and that vessel upward and onward.
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I figured I would fetch you and not the other way around. So here I am. Your parents are in front of me, so patient and serene I’m reminded of the story you told me about when you left home for the first time and wrote them love letters every day for two years. Your mother is not crying the way you described she did then. I can see she is delighted to be here, looking at you so lovingly, breathing so quietly that the smile on her face barely moves.
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I’m standing slightly to the left of center, where I’ve always been. I brought the art bag--no fiesta ware on this trip--but I filled the bag with pilot pens and your sister’s marbles, your shells and painting supplies and the pictures of Isabella and the rest of your family including me. In the left sided seam I tucked in an unlimited phone card. I know you will rib me for this decision unmercifully, but hey!, phones might be available someday and if they are, they won’t be free. That’s where the card comes in. We’ve connected all these years. There’s no need to risk changing that. Plus I like the idea of being able to still talk in words.
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So I’m here to fetch you. I may hover to one side so I don’t get in the way, but you’ll know I’m here the same way you always have. Your breathing is irregular and there is a nurse leaning over you. She knows you have only seconds left and she is preparing your family and friends. They are saying their goodbyes. Although you aren’t moving anything, you are whispering about deep love. I smile that you remembered to pass that on as your final word.
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I can tell you for sure you have nothing to worry about. The trip is short and airy. I’ll hold on to your left elbow and guide you in a curved arc that could just as well be a straight-up line. You will look down and whisper one more time, I will laugh when you settle in and find with both comedy and comfort that my invisible rocking chair is still next to yours. We’re still rocking after all these years. How about that?

16 comments:

  1. I think leaving here, just like arriving here will forever be a mystery and possibly may only ever be whatever we imagine it to be.

    love to you my friend ;)
    I have a loving thought for Renee everyday too.

    x Ribbon

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  2. One will think "She is leaving now", somewhere else someone will think "Here she comes" and the eternal cycle will be renewed and love will began anew.

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  3. Fetch is a beautiful piece of writing. Beautiful!
    I'm reminded of my mother's final two weeks of life, and her reports of different people who were in the room with us (including the "fat Chinese man" upon whose lap I was sitting in the chair next to her bed).

    I posted <a href="http://writerquake.blogspot.com/2010/02/that-was-long-ago.html</a>a poem< last week that reminds me of your <em>I don't know what actually happens when someone dies...</em>

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  4. poem

    gee, see if I get it right this time.:)

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  5. I read the piece before I read your intro, too it and assumed it was about Renee.

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  6. This is beautiful, kj. I hope and pray with all my heart that something like this awaits each of us. I love what Allegra wrote, too, and I will hold that vision in my heart, along with yours. I miss our friend. xoxo Pam

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  7. this is beautiful kj. While I have been holding Renee so closely in my mind and heart, I also imagine her surrounded with tender love and light, slowing her breath and releasing into the next phase of her being. I miss her so, but feel her presence as never ending and vital. Thank you for your insightful and touching words. may you be filled with the peace you share here, xo K

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  8. Lovely. I really liked the part about the little bear. I think it will be so easy to leave and not at all as painful as arriving.
    Love to dear, sweet Renee...
    Love you.
    xoxo &heart;

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  9. gosh i hope you are right, i feel so lonely when i think of death, bless you for your love.

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  10. Renee, m' dear - this is so beautiful, but just made me burst into rears. (Although to be truthful, it doesn't take too much these days...)

    Anyway, it is a gorgeous bit of prose and it really is true. As much as we all have our individual fears regarding dying, death and the afterlife - we will ALL experience it and will find the courage/faith to go through to - what? Well, it is a mystery - but a beautiful one and for me, at least, a hopeful one to be reunited with loved ones - human and animal.

    Burning my red candle for our Renee daily.....and, still praying for a miracle.

    Love her, love you......

    ♥ Robin ♥

    and...guess what? It isn't raining in San Francisco today!

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  11. Thank you for a beautiful and hopeful post.
    Renee has been on my mind daily, and in my prayers...I'm still holding out for a miracle. She is an angel among us.
    xoxo
    betty

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  12. Wow thank you, as I read this, it sunk in to my heart and rested there. I am so comfortable with this now.
    Beautiful, just beautiful kj.

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  13. kj I think this, I think this all the time. I can't say it. I've felt it and I can't say it. . I've watched it and I can't say it. My father in the last moments of his life said "What's happening to me Nellie" . .all I had was "Dad, you're dying . ." I sat by and held his hand but I had no words to console. He didn't need words. I feel so hard for Renee's family they will never know . this was resonant, reminiscent and quite sad and beautiful. Then you are proof that opposites like you and I attract.

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  14. Kj, so far this is my favorite piece of anything that you've written.

    Holy wow. So moving.

    I have yellow tulips in the studio this week for Renee. I'll always have yellow flowers now to remind me of her. And for some reason lately I'm referring to her as "baby girl" when I talk to her.
    (Meaning, I walk past the flowers and say "hey baby girl, I miss you.")

    This is a really beautiful piece.

    xoxoxo
    Lo

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  15. It's amazing you found this piece of writing just now, when it's so needed by many of us. It's beautifully written.

    I'm with Annie...I believe death is ever so much more peaceful than birth.

    I walked along with Katrina when she died...one day, when you've got loads of time, we'll get together and I'll tell you what happened!

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  16. *Tears*

    That is too beautiful

    (((hugs)))

    <3

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