Remembering those we love …

I remember making the deliberate decision not to write down the magical moments as they were happening. In the back of my mind, I knew we would be cleaning out the house soon, that much of your stuff would become my stuff, and I didn’t want to add even a few sheets of paper to what I knew I would be taking in.

The whole meaning of the word “possessions” was about to change forever for each of us, although we barely knew it at the time. Going through your worldly goods, breaking down your material life, I remember thinking that you did not own a single un-beautiful item, and feeling the burden of so much beauty.

While cleaning out the garage, I found a small piece of paper on which you had asked yourself the question: “Can we take our knowledge with us when we die?” I still don’t know the answer to that question but I do know that my sister and I touched each and every one of the thousands and thousands of things that you didn’t take with you, and we tried our best to put each item into the next correct hand.

Now, all the magical moments that I never put to paper are harder to remember, but they surface from time to time asking to be written down. Like the night the three of us stayed up together laughing and laughing and you used up so much of your remaining energy to give us a beautiful memory. Or the morning you scolded us for doing such a poor job of getting you from the bed to the bathroom and back to the bed again⏤that was your last good day. Or the night I heard all the drumming, and you told me it was just a bunch of ancestors coming to get you and take you home.

After you left and the house was finally cleaned and emptied, I made a spreadsheet of every single thing I owned. Most of my stuff now was actually your stuff, and I realized it probably would have been OK to add a single journal to my collection of worldly goods. A journal to record my memories of your magical exit from this life, how you did it on your terms and in your way. I love you Mama. I’d much rather have you than have your beautiful things, but these things, at least, are something of you I can touch.

Copyright 2023 Kesel Wilson (entirely, 100% human-created)

Please share my writing with your friends and family.