Staring back at me, and strangely I am not surprised by this or disturbed in any way, is my long deceased brother, Ben. In his eyes, those deep dark pools of blue with rings of black, so full of love and innocence, I see my reflection and his eyes seem to drink me in. He is six, as always, and he has the Cat in the Hat in his hand...for the seventy millionth time.
"The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house, all that cold, cold, wet, day. So I sat there with Sally, we sat there, we two, and I said, 'how I wish we had something to do.'"
My mother and my sister read that book to me, and I read it to all my younger siblings, but it was reading it to Ben, over and over, that has emblazoned its rhymes on my memory.
I am lying in a pine box, whispering sweet nothings into my little brother's ear, my neck enveloped by his too short arms on his stubby little body, him pretty much drooling in my ear as he told me he loved me the best right back. We are lying there underneath a woolen Hudson Bay blanket that we may have ordered earlier that year, or purchased years later from the L.L. Bean outlet in Maine. I am strangely not suffocated and overly hot as I usually am under any bed coverings, especially such a heavy, insulating one. But that is only because we are actually under the ethereally light lace coverlet from that dead artist woman's store...the one who painted our refrigerator, and whose cute art with hearts and doves and swirls and flowers has always influenced my doodles...what's her name, it's on the tip of my tongue...I even see her off in the distance through the eyelets..Lil? No, that's It's Only Natural's owner, Jill, Jen...And she's gone and her name escapes me.
I am lying there with Dr. Seuss too, on his and dad's birthday, and speaking of dad, he's there too, and fits? No he never fit in those little sleigh beds that were actually closer to the size of a trundle bed than even a true twin. Perhaps death has made dad smaller. No, even on his deathbed dad was remarkably large and strong and weighty and willful. Maybe this is the king size bed down in mom and dad's bedroom and this is a childhood pileup revisited. Maybe he just fits because he's stacked three deep in a pine box-o-torium better known as Calverton National Cemetery. That is it. I look up, there's mom in her pine box, and yet a few feet higher is dad in his pine box. Of course now that I look, again, Ben's is a furry faux funny rabbit box, mom's is a shoddily made walnut missing one of its handles yanked off by Dave or Phil in the wrestling match that was getting it down the half spiral staircase of the Kittery Baptist Church. And dad is chagrined at his finery as it was his express written will to be interred inside a simple pine box.
I wake up suddenly. And it is the morning of dad's birthday...the one he shares with good ol' Dr. Seuss. So there's a reason for the bizarre setting to the dream I was in the middle of having before some child kicked me awake with a Bump, and how that bump made me jump, jump, jump! I'm in a deep tailspin, now. I feel bummed, and missing all those dead people, especially Dr. Seuss; I have a tendency to feel deeper sadness over unrelated losses than those that affect more closely. That's also a total lie, but, there's an element of truth.
My Aunt died a couple of days prior to this dream, and I'm sure the passing of my father's sister, and the sadness that death brings to the children of any mother regardless of her age and the thought of that for my cousins, I'm sure that this had some part to play in the maudlin torrential downpour I was lying in the midst of right at that moment. I can't even find the right way to communicate my sympathy and empathy and condolences to my relatives. So I don't. And i regret it. But i'm dug in now.
For the next week I am tired, and achey, and over reactive to everything. And I feel a heaviness and it feels like a pine sleigh bed is tied to my back. Because it is; two of them are. In the midst of all this sadness, there is a string tied to those beds, and they are slipping away because they've been willed to someone who is not a member of the family, and never knew Ben, and they are pulling chunks of withered, dessicated, deteriorated, defunct heart out with them. I have trudged through the week between dad's birthday to mom's birthday/deathday, lugging these heavy solid wooden relics with me and smashed everyone with them as I encounter people throughout my day.
I'm afraid to go to sleep. I'm not interested in what this excessively emotional week in convergence with the always sneakily significant day has to bring me in dreams. To make matters worse, Ray Lamontagne, Carly Simon, Carole King (with her recent songstress partner Sarah Bareilles) Gungor and Great Big World have been my mental minstrels and I can't convince them to stop singing their sad warbles to me. My phantoms are strong ones, and they are my precious; I love that they are strong and will not quit me. So, I'm going with the least negative of my current playlist songs, one that at least in addition to speaking of mortality points to eternity and maybe even a temporary hope here on earth as well: I am mountain, by Gungor. Happy day mom. Happy weird week entire family. And I'm truly sorry for your loss, cousins (couthins as another cousin Lindsay used to say).
I am mountain, I am dust
Constellations made of us
There’s glory in the dirt
The universe within the sand
Eternity within a man
We are ocean, we are mist
Brilliant fools who ruled and kiss
There’s beauty in the dirt
Wandering in skin and soul
Searching, longing for a whole
As the light, light, light of the skies, of the skies
We will fight, fight, fight for our lives, for our lives
I am mountain, I am dust
Constellations made of us
There’s mystery in the dirt
The metaphors are breaking down
We taste the wind inside a sound
As the light, light, lights of the skies, of the skies
We will fight, fight, fight for our lives, for our lives
As the light, light, lights of the skies, of the skies
We will fight, fight, fight for our lives, for our lives
Momentary carbon stories
From the ashes, filled with Holy Ghost
Life is here now, breathe it all in
Let it all go, you are earth and wind
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