I saw my Uncle Johnny tonight. The last time I saw him was at my Great Uncle Pocco's funeral. The last time I had seen my Uncle Pocco was at Christmas that year. Pueblo.
Pocco (Presley) and I watched football talking about the team that year. We never talked about how he was dying. We never talked about how we was going to die. We hugged goodbye like it was an Easter dinner years past when everyone we both knew and loved was still alive. We hugged like we will see each other again. At Easter.
That's how everyone in the Casack family says goodbye...like we will see each other again. And we will.
I was richly blessed and was adopted in 2nd grade by the man my mother married. I was adopted by my father- the only father ever meant to be mine.
And his family is my family. Of course they are.
But there is something about my mother's family that feels more like home. I don't know how to say it without possibly hurting feelings, which is not my intention. I just mean... I understand something about Pueblo and watering the lawn from my grandfather's porch that no one else could ever understand.
The time in between trips to Pueblo is enough to fill a lifetime, it seems. Time I lived there as a child of a single mother and every weekend until I was 7 and my mom married. Every Friday picked up from school. Every weekend stories and soda in bed with grandma and strawberry grass stains on my knees.
Most of this won't make sense to anyone. I don't care. Most of this won't be grammatically correct. I don't care.
I just have to have somewhere to put what flooded me tonight before it disappears. like i think i will disappear once my grandmother dies. like i think every memory that ever mattered to write down before i had children will disappear once my sweet grams dies and how i never visit her at her nursing home even now that she is here in longmont, finally, and why don't you go see her, ashley rose? why won't you go see rosemary which the flower means remembrance which is more than ironic and lovely and horribly sad because she can't keep her eyes open long enough to even recognize a voice and why can't i go see her?
why can't i go see you? why can't you remember, grams?
it's me. it's pale flower. it's me. you would remember me.
and sometimes i think you are the only one that would. that would really remember me.
i used to tear pages of my journals out and hand them to people in case i died. to be remembered.
feeding you strawberry sundaes, watching your hands shake on the table like you are blowing on a candle like you are whistling...
and it's like our lives are polaroid pictures that sat in an album in the sun and now they are garish orange colors bled all together making some sort of collage of what...was the picture. what was an anniversary. a song. life.
i used to drive for hours just to help you brush your teeth and tuck you in once your life became an 8X10 room with one box of frames and drive back with a pack of cigarettes and smoke every-single-one singing at the top of my heart from the bottom of my lungs like you could hear me and like i was helping you sleep
and i wanted to see you poke your sweet fingers through the blinds again from your mobile home and wave goodbye because you knew i was leaving and because you knew i would see you again and you would see me.
at easter.
aunt margie's laugh you always thought every person checking you out at the grocery store was upset with you the time you had to put the apples back because you didn't have enough money the time you lost your car and walked for hours in the parking lot when you first started to forget the story about the turpentine and how i laughed the moth in the kitchen and grandpa's green robe on the back of the bathroom door the wall of mirrors the room that scared me the crack in the sidewalk were i tripped at the twins' house every time i chased your car down the street when you and grandpa dropped me off back home the steel mill marking the drive home. my mom gave me the rocker and wanted it back to refinish. and it broke my heart.
the pictures riddled on aunt lou's wall with generations of life crawling in to grandpa's lap at age 15--minutes before he walked himself out of his house to go die he knew he would die at that hospital and so did i and i felt his tears in my hair as he held me.
i felt his tears in my hair. no more russian easters. why don't we have russian easter's grams? I can bring the basket and honey...you can bring the host and parsley. and i want to see you at that table. God, i want to see my family at easter.
the dream you had after both of your sons had died. tony and steve. drunk drivers. the way you told the story of the police coming to your door. again. the sirens. the way you knew.
the blocks of bikers around the church that day. grandpa in court giving that man freedom "ruining his life won't bring my son's back."
tony's life after his daddy was killed. prison. kids. drugs. sobriety. i love that brother cousin of mine.
when you drove around the block listening to "the hollies- he ain't heavy" and cried and asked me to be quiet and how i understand that funeral song after i can't tell you anymore. alan parson's project "time."
the gold leaf ring. the ruby ring. the plastic ring. the gap you have in your teeth. me too.
taking you to the bathroom. the role reversal in our lovely relationship...helping you put your shoes on. and tie them.
the morning of grandpa's funeral. you cried because you sat on your glasses. i cried because i got red lipstick on my white dress.
i miss you. grandma I miss you. i miss my family. i miss my family. i miss you.
you would have so much to say to me in this season of my life. i know you would. you knew something all along that we never knew...
and i can't ask you anymore.
and you are sleeping blocks away from me.
blocks!!!! and i have not seen you since your birthday LAST march. Cards i have bought for you...stupid, cheesy, FAKE cards are in my desk drawer like a crime.
"don't bring me flowers when I am dead."
when were you last outside, rosebud?
when did you last see a tree? a squirrel? i killed one the other day. hit it with my car. i sobbed. man, i hate it when i kill animals.
called you from pay phones growing up. had a dime in my shoe every day for passing period.
i miss your voice. i miss talking to grandpa.
when he died i set my alarm for 15 minutes.
15 minutes.
and i wept. i crawled in to a ball and rocked on my floor and muddled ungodly tones in to my fists and pillow. and then my alarm went off. and i stopped crying.
how do you deal with one of your dads dying?
i could ask you. but i can't.
the music and how "Jesus knew what he was doing to create something so beautiful as that." the scorpion in the sliding glass door. I Love Lucy. Golden Girls. squeeze its. cherries.
fighting with tony at grandpa's feet when he made us play under the dining room table as a reminder...he was there.
when he walked out of his house the last time a moth flew in. and he looked at me and told me i would have to get them myself now. mass. funerals.
the shadow of the fan as it whirled over that statue of mary the last time you could go to mass.
the time you told the woman she looked like a man because you didn't know you were saying that.
the way you still would ask if you get me anything...when you could not go to the bathroom yourself...you just didn't know.
the brown glass always filled with water at grandpa's spot. the way his eyebrows raised when he opened the mail. cigar smoke.
nadia's theme for your 25th.
you hid the chocolate in your underwear drawer. and the alka-seltzer. pushing the veins on your hands. baths in the sink. cyrus.
i learned how to be an adult as a child.
i have a bed time. i have to go to bed. i have two kids these days.
i love you.
pale flower
