My son, my firstborn child, the black sheep of the family for so many reasons, just died. He was found lying in his bed. He’d been gone for about a week when they found him.
He was angry at me and told me he couldn’t have me in his life. So when he didn’t answer my calls I didn’t think
I didn’t know he was gone.
I thought he was just trying to keep his distance.
So now there are arrangements to be made that suck. Everything hurts so much. I feel sick I feel like throwing up but instead, I eat the food people bring because that is what the living do, we eat.
soup and bread and all those things.
And I am angry and sad and I can’t breathe sometimes.
And I laugh at all the memories of some of the funniest things he did and said.
I try to pray but God is busy making funeral arrangements while the mourning dove coos in the eaves outside my window.
Sounds like Nick’s voice when he was just about to make a point.
Sounds like Nick’s voice without the words.
When he was a newborn he made those same sounds and I knew, even then, he had something important to say.
I am listening. Now. In the earliest part of the day.
You can hear him too, can’t you?
He never actually wanted to be in your face; he tried to shrink his big bear body, tried to become a point on the horizon, to be the hum that follows the silencing of all living things.
asingingtree 