Would I be sharing a secret if I told you I find goodbyes heartbreaking? Would I be admitting cowardice if I told you that the thought of releasing the ribbon that tethers the brightest floating balloon to my fist sends a fear slithering up my spine as slickly as the ribbon slips? Would I surprise you if I said there are pieces of me scattered, a bit here, a bit there, left willingly and hostage to people, places, memories? Would you listen if I urged you to stop, kiss your love, breathe in life?
I was compelled to drive home Thursday, home in this sense being the tree-lined bumpy sidewalks of my youth. I drove with my windows down, letting the warm air pick up my hair. Letting my mind just lift.
I needed to see him. Hospice has been called in, and they (not hospice, necessarily), have said he is given to fits, depression, catatonic spells. He knew me when I walked in, which is humbling. I've walked away from any entitlement I had to the priority of being remembered. But he said, "wellllhelllo", a tumor-slurred version of the "well hello lis" I've heard since my youth, and he patted his bed.
I sat next to my uncle on his damp sheets (they change his bedding often), told my nose it smelled the cologne he always used to wear, looked into his blue eyes that squinted against the vapor swirling from his breathing treatment. He took out the mouthpiece.
"Debcametoday" he murmured. "Idintknowher"
"Well." I patted his knee, swallowing my surprise that he'd forgotten his sister he'd seen just a few weeks ago. "Well. She IS getting old."
He sort of laughed, then moaned. "notthatold" and he sort of folded in on himself.
"Oh..." I so wanted him not to cry. I touched his chest. "But, here, you knew her, right Uncle Mark?" He nodded, his face crumpled. "And listen, that's the part that stays. And it goes forever. You know that, right?"
"ihopesoihopeso" And he kept saying i hope so, over and over, and his hope and fear were with us, leaping over exhaustion and pushing away things less tangible like his swollen face, to sit with us, palpable and demanding to be recognized.
I had much more to say. I had a thousand things, really. I needed to tell him every single thing I could remember about him, so he knew he wouldn't be forgotten. I needed to tell him what I knew about Heaven so he wouldn't be so frightened. I needed to keep smiling and joking and feeling like I wasn't about to let go of the brilliant balloon that has been such a joy bouncing about my life since I was a little girl. I needed to stay until the fear of saying goodbye faded from his eyes. I needed to find courage and give it to him. I needed to say it's okay to be scared and that the living wouldn't stop here. I needed to yell at my aunt that he wasn't ready to go to where she needed to take him, because I wasn't ready...
But in that way that so mimics the time that slips from our desperate grip, she came into the room, sort of annoyed, I think, that I had stopped by un-announced, wrapped her hand around the belt at his waist that he sometimes allows people to hold onto to stabilize him, and said, "Sorry to rain on your parade, Lis, but there are people we are supposed to meet at 5..." And I watched as he struggled to his feet.
And I knew that it was one of those moments. One of those places I would regret letting go of without screaming and shaking my fists at and saying, "BUT I'M NOT READY and THIS IS NOT OKAY WITH ME RIGHT NOW!!!!!" And on the outside, I waved a breezy hand.
"Oh sure," a casual shrug. "Thanks for letting me pop in." And I walked out. Just tossing "goodbye" back as if I hadn't just given another part of myself to a balloon that I had to let go of.
Would you believe me if I told you that I sometimes resent having to have the strength to walk away?

have you ever noticed
the most brilliant sunsets
dance around storm fronts?
that melba peach
can only vibrate
across the skin
when the eyes take it in
against
woolen gray...

i chase sunsets
most often meaning to get there
but running into grocery lists
and bathtime i
somehow miss it
the bigness,
the build up,
the sigh of its exit

but every now and then
if i inhale
in and in and in
until tears press against
my breath
He
lets it wait
leaves it pulsing against my skin
a tasty
peach
of what has been,
build up and all,
until darkness
envelopes the
shadows of
the setting retreat
in silence

I had all this steam. Was ready for a rant, of sorts. My thinking was I'd begin by listing out what I had accomplished by noon, really make someone marvel, and then end my geyser pout with something like, "Now, go ahead and tell me I'm 'just a stay at home mom'." And I might still write it some day, that piece that needs to be held up to the light of a society that has somehow now gotten the backward enlightenment that a woman is really only fulfilling her fullest potential if she turns herself inside out to work outside the home. After all, we can't ever really seem to get it, can we? That the "yououghto's" we throw around and dodge like spitwads in study hall are so little worth the spit and air that forms them.
But then, I read the heart of a friend spilled out in the recollections and reality of her blog. And she, in her characteristic pound-your-heart-to-pieces, no apologies way, humbled me. Shamed my steaming rant into a quiet whistle. And in this crazy, unanticipated, unintentional gesture gave me permission to BE.
May I explain?
Today, she kissed her dad on the head. His bald, aching, cancer-filled head. She wondered, as she drove to work about her kids at school and preschool, withthe sitter... She wondered about when her day would come to just be, sit, absorb, recoil, reflect.
I think about it. Pout about it. Envy people for manicured nails, not the polish, really: the time they had to sit through it. Waiting for the paint to dry.
And then something like taking a last breath, and not in some victorious, huge heroic way, but in that fist at the throat, succumbing to disease kind of way, makes me feel like an idiot for wasting any breath on defending my self, my positions, my wounded sense of time when I could have used it to form a praise or a blessing or a thanks or a laugh or a sigh of peace.
So I send her permission. She wouldn't take it, I don't think. Because God knows that if she took the time to Be right now, she might just have the breath squeezed right out of her. So maybe, instead, I'll send her a sigh, heavy with thought, thick with tears, but shining just enough with the glittering edges of peace, kind of like a sunset after a storm.