Author Archives: Whatisbeautifulremains

look see

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through the lens, both metaphoric and physical, grief has transformed how i look at things, and what i look at.  no longer asking myself if something looks pretty or interesting, i wonder simply which element has made me feel – feel like looking further, feel like taking the picture.  i put whatever it is in the center of the viewfinder, or the center of my attention, and get closer until it fills the frame. snap. click. i have found a little something i am looking for.

this is not to say i am taking better pictures now, or that i ever was capturing anything which could transcend the conversation in my mind to touch something universal in others. but i’ll keep trying.

what marv and barbara’s deaths brought was a conviction that the place to start, the only place i had to begin, was being fully in my self.  looking at the love i have for them.  recording something about the persons i lost the day they died.  discovering that the “you” i was before, is gone as irrevocably as they are.

but love of some kind has begun pouring in, filling spaces which needed to be emptied with nothing more tangible than afternoon light. glowing on a plastic bag, the corner of the sofa, the gathers of muslin across the curtain rod. i can’t see going back, ever, to the life where i wondered if i had something to say. because i do. and it is this:

look. see. what is beautiful remains.

keeping warm in july

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just like papa bear and mama bear, mom’s porridge was always too hot or too cold – if you replace the word “porridge” with the word “everything.”  owing to causes both psychic and physical, i knew she could never be comfortable; but the porridge was always to blame for this condition, never her.  down deep, of course, mom was aware that it was her thermostat which couldn’t maintain an acceptable climate.

i did not really want to share my favorite blanket with mom.  begrudging generosity was the best i could manage when attempting to solve the impossible – an expectation which she seemed to have of me, despite my clear inability to find my keys.  her apartment was so cold, she said.  i would try not to roll my eyes when she was actually looking right at me.

when mom told me how wonderful the mohair blanket was, i didn’t show the pleasure it gave me to hear her admit that i had found a solution for her.  featherlight and so very, very warm,  those miraculous mohair goats were born to keep her fragile bones warm without too much weight.

the blanket was in the trunk of my car, not on her bed, when she died; nonetheless, it was one thing i swore i could not use again.  too much her in it, i thought.  best just to let it go.  today was going to be the day.  i learned differently, however.

i wish it had been me, keeping her warm,  a cozy shoulder, a comforting cuddle.  but i sent my blanket instead.  it was four months, today, that our last chance to cuddle in this life came and went, and as i held our blanket i felt you there again, and i was happy to feel like crying.