2:32 p.m. - 2010-10-11
Her Room
Yesterday, I dared enter the quietest room in the universe. The room so still it is almost airless. The room so full of memories, so devoid of laughter. The giant tv has not been on since she forgot what it was for. In a sudden sweep, I threw away the tools associated with her decline. The baby wipes and dry shampoo and things unspeakable, designed for those trapped inside bodies betraying them in increments at every turn. I pulled the curtains open, letting light back into the room that is darkness itself. I put the bunny I cheered her with, as she regressed from my mother to my child, on the bed. It seemed to know. I pulled drawers in random fashion, trying on a ring or two. Tearless, I roamed the landscape of slow despair, now a desert. A dried rose petal mocking life. A dresser mirror offering no proof of her existence. The carpet, black in places from who knows what. A useless container. How like a body, at the end. Battered with use, unable to scratch one's nose. How I loved her, this complicated one. How I wanted to spare her pain. How I wrestled with her, decades on end. To understand. To be understood. How we came to know, underneath it all, the love that survived all as all was stripped away. Do I miss her? Which her exactly do I miss? Certainly not the one writhing in pain, calling for her own mother, long long gone. Her face, a horrific mask of bewildered, senseless pain. The guilt of watching her languish. Of making decisions, only to scramble for some giant eraser. Begging a cosmic do-over from the God I trust. Yet I miss her. All of her. Yes, even that one. Her room is empty. I think I am numb, yet I keep writing August, although it is October. I was just handed a paper to correct here at work. This time, I had typed August onto a form. The world as I knew it stopped in August. No wonder I can't conceive of October. She is with God. I know it is "a better place". She is at peace, while the bunny on the bed looks lost, purposeless. I am afraid to look in its knowing eyes, afraid I will resonate beneath the anesthesia of activity and distraction. Afraid to feel the guilt, so I shun all feeling. Mostly, I avoid this room that won't let me forget. Useless as a stuffed rabbit, listless on the bed.
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