janetisserlis

8:26pm: who's

the girl weeping at the table as people speak maybe Arabic, and jazz plays and

across the street her mother lays dying?

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8:06am: fathers

among my generation, loss had started
had begun

the fathers leave first

the fathers, first to go

gone

left

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8:21am: fade to sad

man I loved, hard, badly, in 1979, and for two years and then, differently since ever
ever since

an angry man, a complicated man

a man I spoke to last night, trying to articulate why I rarely call, how my days float one into another, how care giving consumes, how words are hard

he says something about this not being good or useful
about me ringing twenty-five year old bells
and I become angry at the edges, quietly, but there. I suggest, I say well, then, fair enough, let's say if you would.Ike to speak you'll phone, you'll let me know.
to which he responds, ciao
at which moment I snap the phone shut

loss
another loss.

a thread. of continuity I thought might matter.

I later write this in an email that I don't know he'll read:

to be clear

I'm sorry for whatever negative feeling I've created for you

I won't be in touch again unless you'd like to be . my intention these last few times of being in touch has been to be in touch - to recognize whatever connection, friendship, something, whatever we've shared, to recognize, I suppose that in the midst of so much loss, there is comfort in people we've cared about in one way or another over time. I've certainly not wanted to create ill feeling, but to respect our history, a history. knowing each other, being there in some way.

clearly that's not what you need or want and I apologize . I can't articulate very clearly beyond that, but I'm sorry.

I do wish you well

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1:23am: declined

of course he has

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10:11pm: despondent

blind started a wwf game with stevenshaw, who appears as Stevenshaw on the tile screen

who does that?

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1:41am: I can

not do this alone

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12:02am: cause of death

manner of death

pointless

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1:41pm: that arm
that arm of his. that arm, that hand, holding, that arm around me, surrounding,  that person, that presence, that weight.

I miss that, it, him beyond words, beyond reason.

7:50am: waking

at mom's

out of sorts

tired

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11:44pm: I know

what it is they say killed you

again and again we are bereft

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8:54pm: cause of death

I now know

I have no words

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7:59pm: I ate

the last piece of quiche in the freezer that Amy made when Steve died

because I'm drunk
because this is unbearable
because she made another one last week for my mother and me

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6:49am:

sad
and sad and sad

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9:30pm:

delete

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1:02am: sleeping fitfully

not sleeping

I go to her

mom: what's that?

me: it's the light fixture

mom: oh. I thought it was a tunafish sandwich

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9:33pm: and I threw

my glasses across the table

who does that?

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10:31pm: monday

maybe five or six years ago, sometime after christmas, at a friend's place near Tampa.

we leave tomorrow morning; unwisely or not I've decided to make one more trip back down here when/if we sell the trailer and the share. this is what he bought with his mom's money to pass along to Tom.

feel like Lot and his wife - unable to move. can't look forward, can't go back.

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11:51pm: clifford

earlier, on the beach, walking north at sunset
we encounter Clifford, his dad, his sister Kay and maybe his mum

his dad tells us, "he's special ed."

Clifford likes the sunset very much.
sometimes there's a flash of green. I saw it with him this early evening. not quite so much a flash, but something. some green something, there, at the horizon.

does his father feel the need to protect him? he doesn't know us. if he did he'd have known not to say that. we already loved him in the way you can love someone you don't know.

tell us something like that and we'll love him all the harder.

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1:37pm: vanity

do over

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1:35pm: forever

some days it feels like I've been holed up here forever

a. I am blessed to have my mom. with me, here, to have a mom.

b. I'm too stupid to be afraid in a specific way

c. I look like crap

d. really, what I wonder about is how to help her find joy, accomplishment, courage. a reason,reasons.

there's an appointment with a specialist good doctor for her.

step by step by step by step.

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2:10am: thank you

my mother tells me I say the same things as her teacher: turn, pivot, backwards.

she asks me, who are you?

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10:58am: no thing

my mother in her bed, the sunlight on her, across her.

she speaks small sentences. I see her eyes open, I don't know what she sees.

I can't know what she's seeing.

there is no thing I know to do to help her.

I don't know what she needs.

this not knowing, not doing is unbearable
and yet borne . born.

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2:56pm: and

Remembering

my mother, the surviving child, looking after her parents
with virtually no help from anyone

this morning, trying to sleep, alone, weeping in her sitting room, lonely, sad, tired, himself gone.
me. alone. mom in her bed. sleeping, too. I hope, through pain. fear.

she did this, she's done this. what I do now, she's done before. I don't know how to ask her how she got by. got through one day and an other. palpable loss but not loss. here but not entirely.

I hope for, work towards, contemplate grace.

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2:54pm: mom

called at 5:13, needing her pain patch.

rub the sleep out of my head, dress, get the car, obey the traffic lights.

go to her.

where have you been? she's angry, almost.

I was home mom. I had to come here.

are you wearing that outfit to school?

no. there is no school today.

it's Saturday

I don't entirely know how to do this.

one bite at a time, I suspect, just like elephant.

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12:40am: much of it

much

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