Grudge

Grudge

4/12/12

These trails I keep retracing
Are now churned thick with mud

step by step I'm circling the same bitter thoughts     

winding over the bitter in my painful years

My feet are sore and my throat is aching

to get off this graceless climb

but the mantle of remembrance capes

my shoulders, shadows my journey;
yes, I still hold a grudge

People I know seem to think

I can toss it off with a grin & a shrug;
Come back to my younger self
welcoming all, sure good would win
That girl's gone -
She can't come back
The holy spirit can't reanimate her bones

no, I still hold a grudge

even if she could awaken, I can't go back to her

soft and unprotected skin

so vulnerable to environmental damage and dismay

How will I portent the dangers lurking 'round the bend?
I need all my wits about me

I already learn so slow
I'd like them to acknowledge,

forgetting doesn't smooth the scars;

it doesn't cure the bitter aches

of disappointed, squalid dreams

No. So I still hold a grudge

My Meg

My Meg is gone.
My sweet orange girl.
Her thick fur,
with it's distinctive tabby dots and dashes,
I loved to rub and bury my face against
The special warm clean scent of that coat in the sunshine.
Her baby soft ears, and the base of them where I'd kiss her.
Those keen clear green eyes, trying to avoid a direct gaze.
All her meows I knew so well.
Her kissing rasping tongue on my fingers in our early morning cuddle.
The insistent but gentle head butt when she wanted me to get out of bed already.
Those petal pink too delicate paws,
holding up that triangle of body mass
incongruously
Twelve years.
Twelve years I've read her,
learned her,
pulled her out of her shell,
moved her state to state to state and house to apartment to room
made her roommates with so many
other
people
and made her share my attention with first,
one bird,
then my boy, Sean,
and then one more bird.
She'd avoid the birds
to avoid getting tempted to stalk them.
Her chattering at things outside,
perched in a window,
all that round plumpness,
somehow steady in the narrow sill.
Her easy jump up on the bed
and settle down next to my pillow,
curved perfectly to fit my arm,
my face pressed against her warm side,
breathing her peace and absolute coziness in
hoping it would come to rest in my own soul.
My Megamous. My Nutmeg. My baby girl.
I miss you, sweet girl.
I miss kissing your nosy. When you acted like you hated it.
I miss your head pushing against my hand, getting me to scratch your chin.
I miss talking back and forth to your mews.
I miss you being lost under the covers,
a summer cocoon of color and oh so dreamy under there,
but never so adorable as fluffed under the eiderdown
in winter.
I miss you, my Meg.
I'll always miss you.
And I'll have the bittersweet joy
of seeing you
in my dreams.

Black Hole Halo

5-31-09

My birthday this year is bittersweet. I am 36. My mom was 36 when she was diagnosed with cancer. After three years of battling it, from 4th grade to 7th grade for me, she died. She had just turned 39. I wrote this as I processed once again about this loss and its effect on me. I know that unless you've experienced this kind of loss at an early age, you may not understand what it is like. Maybe this will help you understand a bit of what it is like. At least what it is like for me.

I look at the world through the tint of loss.

Loss that has damaged me, informed me, shaped me.

I may be happy and enjoying myself with friends, but loss lurks, my shadow. It never lets me forget my orphanism. There is a piece of me that continually feels lost, afraid, panicked, saying:

where is she?
where is home?
where is safety?
where is the one who loved me best?

My decisions are informed by my memories of what she liked, hated, was annoyed by, and celebrated.

I stand on the foundation of my mother, and am enveloped always in the cloud of her loss too early, when I was yet unformed, when I needed her, through years of missing her attention, her attentiveness, her smile and color and brilliance, the way she ate mangoes in the sunshine and ran her hands through my hair. (oh, her hands)

How do I explain this to others without sounding crazy? What I say here doesn't talk of all the hurt & pain & horror she caused me. I am writing today about her emblematic role as Mother, as source, as life-giver, as door-opener, as nurturer, as encourager, as permanently present, unshakably tied to me.

I lost my sense of home when she died, the little sense of it I had.

The sense that clung to the two houses of my memory -- our dear Dad-built house on Blackdairy Road & the happily yellow 2-story we lived in when I got chicken pox. I only lived in each house for a short time. Otherwise, we lived in temporary shelters that never felt like home. Somehow, though, these houses gave me a sense of home, of sturdiness, of security, of family, of togetherness, of connection.

The yellow house itself seems to me to rise up & put its arms around me & around the family & bless us with its sturdy roof & walls & floor & fence & trees. A talisman against the evil spirits that took over my mother like the ones that tormented Saul. The house speaks of safety & peace. It lived directly opposite the school I went to. I came home every day for lunches of soup & sandwiches with mom and I had a backyard with a swing to play & daydream in.

I ask myself:

Will I feel less lost when & if I one day own a house & put down deep roots & make it mine all over & thoroughly?

Will I feel less bereft when & if I marry & finally feel that someone else & I have a life-long connection of support & commitment & encouragement & thriving?

As one guy friend said so long ago,
'most of your problems would be solved by a long-term committed relationship.'

So right.
My mom was my first love relationship.
There is a part of my psyche that knows she should be around for the highlights of life, for milestone birthdays, for PMS, & so much more. But she slipped off to the country that I can't travel to until death or Jesus' return. And that deep soul loss resounds in my voice whether I'm talking out loud or just talking in my head. That loss colors every sight I see. That loss scents & texturizes my world.

My spirit - that child within - still sobs & is looking for her mommy.

The grown woman is still somber & looking for home.