Six
years, 72 months, 2190 days ago, we lost you.
Six years, 72 months, 2190 days without
you here on this earth with us.
Six years, 72 months, 2190 days of no
phone calls, conversations, creative collaborations with you.
It’s been six years since we heard your
voice, your laugh, your love for us.
You’re not here with us anymore. There’s
nothing else to say (except everything).
Uncle David, I could tell you about how
scared we’ve been the past few weeks with Uncle Bob in the hospital, having had
emergency surgery within a week after getting his first dose of Moderna, one of
the Covid-19 vaccines, having continued complications since then.
Terrified. Triggered. Traumatized from
shock and concern. Still praying for his full recovery. From that paralysis, there’s
nothing else to say (except everything).
I could tell you how ugly some people have
been lately. One friend bombarding me with popular media news articles after
finding out that I’m waiting to do some real medical and scientific research
before deciding about the vaccine for myself, harassing and name-calling me (apparently,
I’m in an anti-vaxxer cult, though I don’t remember signing up for it) for
simply waiting, wanting to do my own valid and credible research (you know, the
type of database research that I require of my composition students) rather
than relying on popular media to tell me what to do or God forbid social media
telling me how to live. One entitled, older white male acting all condescending
like I’m a fly on the wall at the restaurant he manages, a fly that he’ll just
try to swat away with no thought because he doesn’t care and will just throw me
away. A Facebook administrator censoring my honest post about the negative
experience, trying to throw away my voice, my words. Another privileged, older
white male “throwing his penis around” to show how powerful he is while
throwing everyone else to the wolves…
And out in the larger community and world,
the headlines are just as ugly—mass shootings, white supremacist cop sentenced
while another black girl shot and killed, terrible covid-19 mutations, pieces
of the Earth’s mantle (our planet) being exposed in Maryland…
But I could also tell you how beautiful
some people (and headlines) are. Bado Church still praying for the Crawhams,
for Uncle Bob. One friend inviting me to Zumba in the park and then her
community pool. Another friend treating me to a lovely dinner. Sisters calling
to check on me. Nieces and daughters coming to visit for spring break, for
Easter, for Taco Tuesday. Amazing conversations with new friends…
Or I could tell you how much we still miss
mom. How much we want to call mom and talk to her, every day, every moment.
It’s been just over two years now, and there are still no words. There’s
nothing else to say (except everything).
Elizabeth Bishop begins her poem “One Art”with these lines:
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
She advises us to “Lose something every
day” and catalogues small objects, names, places, land until the last stanza
when she moves to the loss of a person and concludes with this:
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s
evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Losing, loss, grieving, mourning…if it is
an art to develop, I’ve sure had a lot of practice with it in the past six
years, UD. And while I see the irony and life lesson in Bishop’s poem, I also
see the pain and anguish in the parenthetical note. We don’t want to “Write it”
because that makes it real and that means we’re facing it, and it’s over. All
the never agains live in that parenthetical space—
Six years, 72 months, 2190 days to
“master” the “art” of losing you, to get used to the new normal, to grow
forward in life. What I’ve learned is that part of that process IS writing it,
acknowledging the loss, remembering all the good, honoring you (and mom) and
all you both taught us, and passing it all along to others. UD, both you and
mom—your life, your love, your time on this earth—it mattered. It matters, and
it will be remembered. Six years or sixty, six hundred years or more…as long as
there are Crawhams walking the earth. You will be remembered. Mom will be
remembered. All of those we lost will be remembered.
Love, Rach
