Shaking the Dust Off
I gently lower the small box into the soft red dirt at the bottom of the narrow hole. I feel like I should say something: “Thank you,” or “I’ll see you again,” but there was nothing I could say so I didn’t. We held hands and prayed until a tumbleweed crashed through, heading east to west, which is unusual in Oklahoma. The men of my family took turns silently shoveling dirt into the hole and I was the last, tamping the soil down with my dust-streaked boots.
She’s gone. That chapter has ended and from this moment on a new one will begin.
Lord, what a year. Wind the clock back to October, 2024. Cars line every curb as families crowd the sidewalks. Nurses, zombies, ladybugs, and toddler mutant ninja children carry bags of candy. Cold wind cuts through my costume and the yellow paint pulls my skin. We walk a few blocks down to the bar and pull up stools. You ever seen Spongebob shoot whiskey? Political ads interrupt the game. We stumble home and I try to wash the thick acrylic off of my arms.
Five days later: election day. Shivering my ass off and trying to read by lamplight in the parking lot of a church. The doors open at seven and we shuffle in. I mutter my affiliation and receive my ballot. I stare at the names in the confine of the cardboard booth and feel nothing but distain. “These people couldn’t lead a damned wagon, let alone a country” I think. I hold my nose and fill in the boxes. Some day, someone else will run, and they’ll represent people like me.
Later that night I drink champagne straight from the bottle. Neither of those fools can save us now, but I’ll celebrate in spite of it. I’ll celebrate because I’m here among friends, among people who understand the gravity of the situation and also have no faith that either one of the faces on TV will be good for any of us. We won’t be happy either way, but we’ve got each other through whatever is to come.
Hangover creeps in on Wednesday morning. I skim headlines and gauge reactions. I take notes and make an outline, but the words don’t come. I try again a week later, but can’t write anything sensible. It’s too early to tell, but surely a story is there. I’ll try again in December.
Two weeks from Christmas. She asks me what I want and I tell her. She tells me stories from sixty years ago, the details as clear as yesterday. Then she says her cousin came to visit her, her parents too. Aunt Barbara’s been dead for a year. That was the last time she was lucid. She sleeps through Christmas and quits chemo shortly after. I’d been sick off and on for three weeks. My mother calls me and tells me to come visit. “Don’t worry about getting her sick,” she says. That’s about the time I knew.
I spent three afternoons in a row by her bedside. She spent most of the time sleeping, but when I left on Wednesday night she grabbed my arm: “I love you. I’ll be here. I’ll be here.”
“I’ll see you again,” I said.
Snow blew in the next day. My girlfriend and I shared a bottle of wine and watched the snowfall. The whole world was transformed under a thin blanket of white. The snow ceased, but the world became silent, in awe of what it had become. The sky glowed and reflected the light of the city back down. No moon and no stars, but the whole world was basked in light. The next day I got the call.
I didn’t want to see the body. I wanted to remember her as she was. For the twenty-seven years I’d known her, she was more full of life than anyone I’d known. I stayed home, but I couldn’t mourn. I had already done my mourning the night I found out it was terminal. I lit a candle and cried over a glass of rum. By the time the candle had burnt out, the glass of rum was half gone.
I didn’t cry at the funeral. I tried to tell the story of the Oreos, but my voice was shaking so bad I couldn’t get the words out and the story didn’t have the impact that I wanted it to:
A long time ago my grandmother and I were eating Oreos. I’d break it apart and eat the cookie first, saving the best part, the cream, for last. She watched me and asked why I did it that way. I told her that the cookie was the worst part, and I was saving the best for last. She thought for a minute and said “I eat the cream first, that way, if I choke on the cookie, I’ve already had the best part first.”
I didn’t realize it until years later, but she’d taught me a valuable lesson: get the best of life first. And if you have to suffer, you can do it with the memory of the good times. When I finally learned what she was trying to teach me, I took it to heart. Damn the late nights, the hangovers, the misromances and all of the heartache that followed. Get the most out of today: tomorrow may never come.
And eventually her tomorrows were gone. We buried her ashes and celebrated her life. After that, her essence would survive through stories and memories. I would go back home and the world would return to normal. The new president would take office and and the horrible turning of the world would continue. I’d sit at the keyboard and despair: I don’t know what to say. What can I say? Am I getting the cream of life? What is the cream of life in a world that seems to be collapsing around you? Is it living as fast as you can in surrender to a tomorrow that may never come? is it living by your principles? Is it simply enjoying your time here, knowing that it’s limited?
Winter fog hangs over the city. It narrows the scope of my life to what’s visible. The candle is burning down. The sun is on the rise, a new chapter is beginning, and the glass is half full.