Thursday, September 13, 2012

st. francis

I was in Park Slope yesterday, walking with a friend, and we crossed a flyer for a Blessing of the Animals. I didn't check the church -- I wish now that I had, since naturally, I can't find it online. Until then, I'd almost forgotten that, in addition to cider spices and oatmeal and new erasers, autumn tastes a little like your absence, now.

You study nursing and you talk about medical futility and you believe -- the way you once believed in Jesus -- in life, in a good death. And when you are believing these things, you don't think that no matter how good the death and how much better you know, you'll have days when the sky is perfectly blue, when, for once, it's not too hot, and when you're reminded that you are living in a world in which people bring their animals to churches to be blessed.

And in that moment you'd give a lot of what you have for him to be in the rented hospital bed in your growing-up bedroom, murmuring words you know, but don't actually understand. To be massaging his shoulders through the paper his skin has become; to be dipping lemon swabs along his lips like you're lighting candles. You wouldn't want that very long, but you want it then, fiercely, more than you want him back for real, almost -- because in those moments you almost believe that those last few minutes might not be too much to ask.

And people lose their children, you know. They lose their spouses and their parents, and who I am to grieve over you, when you lived almost a century? When you held great-grandchildren? When this time three years ago, just a few weeks before you died, you were perusing library books and walking your dog around the small town where you spent your last few years?

There's nothing tragic or wrong about my grandfather's death. In fact, his death is the sort of thing that makes me believe in God: after so much pain and loss, he died deeply loved, comfortable, on his terms. It means enough to me that I often think it's why I went into nursing -- to help others die that way.

But I feel like I can't know what I believe about God, now, because I want so badly for you to be with Him. When we're carrying our animals into churches in Brooklyn -- a city you never saw and would have hated -- making a beautiful moment in an inattentive space, I like to think of you. Not so much that you're there: though I miss you deeply, and often, so much that missing you is a part of who I am now, it's okay with me if I never properly see you again. I just don't want you to miss this. At the very least, I like to imagine that you had consulting privileges.

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