Posts tagged death
Hard to Love

When my ex-husband told me his father was dead, he said it casually. The way you'd mention an alma mater, or that you'd lived abroad for a while.

"My dad died five years ago," he said. We were at work, in a courtroom with no privacy, dressed in our lawyer suits. He reached down to tug up his socks when he said it. I remember searching for significance in how he announced his tragedy while adjusting his outfit. It made me wonder if his father's death was an easy thing to bear. Or if it were so painful he needed to reveal it in the bright bustle of a courtroom, with busied hands. He usually seemed so guarded.

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Funerals

A funeral is an elementary school gym. The same gym where, in the evenings, you memorize the faded lines that mark the borders of the volleyball court, the gym that you and your ten-year-old teammates sneak away from to peek into the boys bathroom, to see if it really is bigger than the girls (“It is!” you squeal, waving over the other girls to see for themselves). The gym where your P.E. teacher sets out little black X’s on the floor to mark each kid’s spot. “Don’t move from your place,” she says, so you sit criss-cross-apple-sauce, even on the day that you sob all through class because you got in trouble for forgetting to write your name at the top of your multiplication test.

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What Remains

“Why are we here?” Karl asks and sinks back into the floral, wing-backed chair. His lower legs jut straight out of the seat.

“To dress Dad’s body for the viewing.”

I see Rob’s family arriving.

Ansel goes on a hunt for funeral home candy. Barely-a-teenager, he returns with slump posture and announces, “No candy!”

“Darn it,” Helena, my cheeky tween says, pretending to be angry. She gauges Ansel’s woeful expression and laughs.

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My Cemetery

Officially, I do not believe in ghosts. Unofficially, I eat that stuff up. If someone has a ghost story to tell, I want to hear about it. Tapes of ghostly words? I’ll listen! (heart pounding, head under covers). Pictures? Yes, please. It is perhaps true that I have seen every episode of Paranormal State.

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