A Dying Sun
In the blink of an eye it was over-like the sun descending into the cleavage of the mountains, she was gone...One second standing there in all her breathless beauty like a 5 foot 2 inch beacon of hope with a body and a face to cage her and to ground her here with us then the next she was dead. As if to prove there is a higher power, her soul was so gorgeous no eyes in this world could have witnessed the true vision of her soul and no face that any God could create would reflect the beauty that was inside-An Angel with wings tucked inside her soul-A woman who could not be referred to as just a woman to anyone who knew her but instead a Goddess...She was dead, her very last breath still warm in the air, and her heart which had betrayed her had just beat it's last beat then stopped. It was as if her heart was wired to mine and to my children too because in that moment I swore I felt my heart stop for a second too. I watched her sitting there on the passenger side of her SUV and knew that she was gone even though the paramedics would tell me they thought they had a heartbeat. I knew as I watched the ambulance drive off that she was not ever coming home again. There would not be a home without her anyway. And like the sunshine that slipped into the bosom of the Berkshire mountains, its light still radiated and lit up the back of the fat clouds and left beautiful strokes on the canvas of the sky.Red, lava-colored stokes, bright yellow and where the two colors met many amber and pink lines stretched upon the face of the sky. The source of the warmth was gone, the day's light and much like my Mother, I knew I would always see the beauty her being on the earth has left behind but I would never again be able to hold her,hug her or hear her voice in my ears....I could not find any reason to think that the world would cease being anything but the sad, difficult and dirty world that it had been when she wasn't around me, so why should I go on?
Then I turned to see the kids, her Grandchildren, Bailey and Tessa so hopeful that their Nana Chris was merely sleeping, with tears silently running down their cheeks. I had wanted to hide them from the angry, abusive and sad world that I had met and give them only peace and happiness and yet right there, 3 feet from their arms, their Nana sat dead in the car and there was nothing I could ever do or say that would put their arms around their Nana's neck again. I could not shield these two gorgeous, hopeful children from the truth that life is uncontrollable, that the world is a hurtful, abusive place and that what they want more than anything can be taken in the blink of an eye like a sunset.
After that night I broke. Like a glass doll that had been dropped and banged against the wall too many times I was shattering inside out. Once we laid my Mother to rest and my father had refused to deal with anything, I was still trying to maintain my father's life, pay his bills, deal with filling out endless documents to continue his health insurance and pay for his utilities out of my own checking account so that he would have lights, food and warmth. Winter was all around us and his furnace was breaking all the time...I couldn't figure out how to get out of my head and down to his house. When I would I would find that Mom's things were left just where she had placed them before she left...Her pocketbook, a sweater on the chair, a grocery list on the counter. It was when I realized that I couldn't make my father eat, couldn't make him care enough about his health to go to the doctor or get him to come to my house for a meal that I died too. I just laid down and never really woke up again. Sure, I would get out of bed when I had to, sit on the couch and talk to the kids,play a game, make dinner, etc,. but I no longer me, no longer "alive".
I wanted nothing to do with leaving the house and even less to do with talking to people who asked me what I was going to do about my father's declining health and where he would live. Dad was in a bad state at this point. He refused to see a doctor as I said and he would eat sweets instead of the meals I brought him. His diabetes was worsening but I never knew how badly because he wouldn't allow me to take his blood levels. One day after his girlfriend hadn't spoken to him in a day or so she called my sister who called me. I asked my husband to bring me to Dad's house. Kevin decided it was best for him to check on Dad alone. Kevin must have thought it would be bad. It was...He found Dad half dead on his kitchen floor . He might have been there for days. He called 9-1-1 and had the ambulance take him to B.MC hospital.
....To be continued
Then I turned to see the kids, her Grandchildren, Bailey and Tessa so hopeful that their Nana Chris was merely sleeping, with tears silently running down their cheeks. I had wanted to hide them from the angry, abusive and sad world that I had met and give them only peace and happiness and yet right there, 3 feet from their arms, their Nana sat dead in the car and there was nothing I could ever do or say that would put their arms around their Nana's neck again. I could not shield these two gorgeous, hopeful children from the truth that life is uncontrollable, that the world is a hurtful, abusive place and that what they want more than anything can be taken in the blink of an eye like a sunset.
After that night I broke. Like a glass doll that had been dropped and banged against the wall too many times I was shattering inside out. Once we laid my Mother to rest and my father had refused to deal with anything, I was still trying to maintain my father's life, pay his bills, deal with filling out endless documents to continue his health insurance and pay for his utilities out of my own checking account so that he would have lights, food and warmth. Winter was all around us and his furnace was breaking all the time...I couldn't figure out how to get out of my head and down to his house. When I would I would find that Mom's things were left just where she had placed them before she left...Her pocketbook, a sweater on the chair, a grocery list on the counter. It was when I realized that I couldn't make my father eat, couldn't make him care enough about his health to go to the doctor or get him to come to my house for a meal that I died too. I just laid down and never really woke up again. Sure, I would get out of bed when I had to, sit on the couch and talk to the kids,play a game, make dinner, etc,. but I no longer me, no longer "alive".
I wanted nothing to do with leaving the house and even less to do with talking to people who asked me what I was going to do about my father's declining health and where he would live. Dad was in a bad state at this point. He refused to see a doctor as I said and he would eat sweets instead of the meals I brought him. His diabetes was worsening but I never knew how badly because he wouldn't allow me to take his blood levels. One day after his girlfriend hadn't spoken to him in a day or so she called my sister who called me. I asked my husband to bring me to Dad's house. Kevin decided it was best for him to check on Dad alone. Kevin must have thought it would be bad. It was...He found Dad half dead on his kitchen floor . He might have been there for days. He called 9-1-1 and had the ambulance take him to B.MC hospital.
....To be continued
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