The fear came back. The kinds of things that woke me up at night before she had the goddamn stroke and suddenly I cared too much to worry. Even when she died, I didn’t cry. Not the last few hours. Not after I realized that might make it hard for her to let go, and [...]
Garden of Eden
In San Cristobal on her birthday, February 25, 2001
The wind is gusting over 30 mph now at 7,000 feet in Taos County. Barely budding branches whip and sway in the cold, dry air. Forty-four years ago on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, it was warm enough for sandals and the lilacs bloomed. The past is so close I can smell it. I’d give [...]
Early February, 2001 in San Cristobal, NM (photo available here)
I was a piece of work. So much baggage. But all she felt when she laid eyes on me so many years ago was love. “From the very first, I knew,” she said, and repeated it every time she tried to lift me up. I used to get so depressed that she would cry. “You [...]
Any day now, we will move. I don’t know where. But when the cat died, something changed. “I feel a little movement,” said my wife, as if there’d been a shift. Part of this was getting through the ordeal, the fact we’d faced it. I felt lighter, open to the breeze. The other thing was [...]
Very close by
The cat is still dying. Monday can’t come soon enough except I hope it never gets here. Callie the Wonder Cat was almost chipper for a few days but now seems to be slipping away, no purring at all. When she lies down, it looks like a cat rag attached to a head. She’s unsteady [...]
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