Death

On death

3 of our 4 parents died during this past decade. My mother died right before her birthday in 1999, and I came to Manhattan to find my present to her sitting in her mailbox. That was a terrible time. She was mad I had converted to Judaism, and mad that I had moved to California. She was mad about other things. Sexual things. Things involving Karate. She was mad I started making poems again. Or was she proud? It’s hard to know even now. She did, however, always think I had good legs. And good legs are certainly something.

I did a better job with the death with my mother in law, who died of pancreatic cancer. She drove me crazy while she was alive. Brilliant, gorgeous, a yogini, and crack housekeeper and cook, she made me feel inferior in comparison. She yelled at me once for voting the way a friend did. And yet, she intrigued me. At times I understood her. When her final – really bad – diagnosis came in, I wrote her, and she treasured the letter. C… died ON her birthday – an honor reserved, according to Jewish tradition – only to the most righteous of us, the most perfect. Ok – she was that. On the night she died she sat regally on her sofa. I sat on one side, and her youngest son sat on the other. We held hands silently for a long time. She went out like a philosopher. She went out like a queen.

Last my father in law, the best of the 4: the most complete, the most accomplished, the most athletic, and the most – in every way – ALIVE. I stood with his body at UCLA hospital. The last time I saw him conscious I had the strong desire to hug him and say “I love you.” It was a good thing. I have learned the hard way to always listen to those instincts. What feels like the last time, maybe IS. And it was.

Other, more terrible deaths happened. My trainer – a gifted photographer, and former troubadour badgirl – D, died hidden away in her apartment. E.. -- brilliant, creative, funny, and very young – died of a terrible disease. I remember him looking at his father outside of MOCA, one pair of wry eyes looking into another. E… was just, or about to be, 13. An angry alcoholic, blocked semi-writer who loved Brecht but couldn’t write like him, died, forgotten – his daughter not speaking with him. And another writer, who loved Mark Twain and who battled racism at the university wherever he saw it, died too, as hundreds of former students, and current coworkers mourned.

There is flat death and there is death with meaning.

We wake up every morning now and know for sure there is no escape. The fantasy of life-everlasting is now lost to us altogether. This we have lost in the past decade. And yet, we have acquired a sense of urgency, as well as the hilarity that accompanies another day spent beating back the reaper.

We look at those much younger, and smile.