Today is one year since my sister’s memorial service, though as a family we didn’t say our final goodbye until more than a week later. On that day, we took a boat out on the water and dropped her biodegradable urn to set her out into the Gulf of Mexico. I took pictures of all that we wrote on that small cardboard container, as the children may want to see it someday, and because I don’t ever want to forget.
I don’t think I wrote much about the celebration of life for her when it happened. Everything was so painful then. I had spent much of that week curled up with old photos, making collages and a slide show. It was me on the couch with my laptop and a bourbon, while the children played on the floor and everyone sort of watched television. It was mostly on for the noise. I haven’t been able to watch the slide show since then. I don’t know if I ever will but it was important to me then to share her life and her smile and the music that was important to all of us. I also spent time answering inquiries from friends and family to coordinate the event.
With her friends it was difficult, as I didn’t have a lot of patience in those days to answer lots of questions. Thankfully the family was pretty much gathered, though a few came in from other cities to be with us. In all honesty, the event itself wasn’t overly difficult. Several old friends from high school and the years after showed up, people I hadn’t seen in years. It was a reunion of sorts, though I guess these things typically are. We laughed and we cried and we shared stories and it was exactly what she had asked for. I didn’t take any pictures during the event, though it may have been nice to have the memories of those who came but I took one picture of myself right before we began. I don’t take lots of selfies but I wanted to remember how I looked on that day. During the days up until then, I had focused on taking pictures of the children, the cats, the decorations, and the spaces of the house she inhabited. This one was just so I could remember me.
Unfortunately, the memorial service was the last real thing I could do to stay “busy,” and the last real thing I could do in service directly to her. After that, it was just dealing with the pain and the loss. After that came the harder things… like cleaning out her bedroom so her son could move into it. It was difficult to remove her blankets and sheets and to put on her different and fresh ones that no longer smelled of her. Racer K, my adoptive brother, and I burned incense and chanted in the room to bless it and release it of the sadness that had taken up inhabitance over the intervening weeks. I found other small projects to stay busy as well, like cleaning and oiling my mother’s hope chest. Chelsea and I had long conversations about what each of us would inherit when the time came and that was always to be hers. Now it will go to either my niece or nephew, which is a decision left to my mother. Either way, it is one of our few family antiques and I wanted to take care of it.
Now it’s been a year. It’s approaching a year since we had to leave my family and go back to Tennessee. In a sense, I feel like I never leave that house and even more so, I don’t feel like I’ve left that time yet. It was brutally hot and humid in Florida as July turned to August. I tried running while there but within a couple miles I would be brutally dehydrated. Standing outside was oppressive and it was already so hard to breathe from the ache in my chest. It still is but at least now the air is cooler and there is no humidity to speak of here in Denver. However, I’d trade the comfortable summer weather to be at my mother’s house again, with my arms around my family.