Because I was supposed to see her on the 18th of January I always think of that date as her last day on earth. I went through my busy day yesterday not really thinking of her.
I just reread the last letter she wrote to me. I keep it in my underwear drawer with Henry's teeth, and other random, important things. This has been my first intimate case of mourning in my life. I wish I had something wise to say. In some ways the deep sadness is just as sharp and tender as it was a year ago. Little details of life bring on waves of tears and a lump in my throat.
Listening to Graceland on our way home from Christmas I couldn't stop crying. I remembered singing that one song that begins..." Joseph's face was black as night..." with Rose in college. We had decided to sing it a cappella for a talent show. I was so stricken with stage fright that we looked into each other's eyes the whole time and held hands.
I still talk to her in my head, walking down the sidewalk.
Rose's voice is strong in her last letter to me. In it she wishes that my life "will be exactly what you make of it and that you have the clarity to see the soft or violent but always subtle beauty in whatever your life becomes; to see the truth of what you have been given and the strength to, in the face of those gifts, continue to make an active choice." The last sentence in the letter is "After a while crocodile. " Always the jokester.
No comments:
Post a Comment