You Are Flying Free

I did not realize how silently death slipped into both our lives

First yours, stealing you away,

All morphine drips, madness

Sadness and isolation

In a home you built with your own two hands.

our mind melding, into a body receding back unto itself -

like some cruel metaphor of how you had given everything away

to everyone else.

Your spine collapsed, shrinking you into

the metaphor you seemed to almost willingly become.

You gave so much away

To us, to your friends,

to that which you called Faith..

You left nothing for that warm flame

That wild, Scandinavian-Minnesotan-Settler-child, heart.

I wanted to see you fan that flame, Granbird.

I wanted to see you douse yourself in sweet pitch,

Sticky with the lighting of your own heart set on fire to emerge from the ashes

The beautiful Phoenix I always knew you were, I will always know you are.

Not the fragile. listless, wild-eyed self that you had grown into

Eyes like a horse, sometimes, panicked and ready to bolt.

What were you afraid of, granbird?

Or, rather,

Who were you afraid of?

Because death was certainly not your greatest fear.

You met death with grace, and acceptance, and a willingness 

I only knew once in life when I had been brought me to my knees

and reminded that life was bigger than my attachment

to any outcome.

You released yourself into the quick stream you called God,

And with tears in both our eyes

You told me you were happier to be gone.

And I wondered what life would have been like

If you had married a man who had loved to love you.

Or if you had been given the chance

To fall in love with your tempestuous, generous, joy-filled self. 

The way I did, as a little girl, every day and will still now until I leave this world too.

And then, on that day, will I join you? Oh, death.

How I chased your spirit down those silent halls of the non-living.

Willing your spirit back to this world just to answer my selfish questions.

“How much water do I add to quinoa, granbird?

Do I use baking soda or baking powder?

How do I get this stain out?

How do I hem this skirt?

How do I patch that hole?

How do I mend this broken heart?

How do I mother, and lover, and bread maker, and….."

Instead, I danced my sadness away,

Only to realize it was sadness I was dancing with.

Instead, I ran away from pain,

Only to realize the pain was following me,

latching itself on to every aching muscle.

Instead, I tried to push myself past mourning, pushing past despair, 

Gut-wrenching loneliness creeping, madness making pre-dawn rise.

Only to realize there is no pushing - there simply is, until there is no more.

And, ever so slowly, my mourning turns down its own cavernous marshes, 

Through an evergreen forest, to a quiet grove of remembering. 

Here is where I will lay to rest my memory of you.

Where we will dance together for the very first time.

(Because we never did when you were alive). 

And then off you go into the next,

Wilder than you ever were.

Maybe that is why you were so ready to go.

Free, Granbird.

You are Flying Free.