060507 - concrete

I took a poetry class years ago, one in which the instructor (a brilliant, published, bitter man) forbid us to write certain words. "Grandma", "beauty", and the big one...."Love". Now, Heffernan had the foresight to prevent us from making the gaffes of novice writers. He anticipated the insipid and trite words of the affected masses and was trying to force us to put our love for Grandma and beauty into concrete words. I failed as often as not...and I only just realized why this moment.

Stay with me.

I went to my cousin's funeral last Friday. We lived next door to one another for years, were practically brother and sister. In fact, the casual and un-dramatic nature of our relationship was EXACTLY like a brother and sister's. He attended my wedding 8 days before he was hit, riding his motorcycle, by a lady driving a truck she had no business driving. He was dragged by the trailer attached to the truck and died on the scene. It never occurred to me, at the wedding, to pay any special attention to him. Had I known how suddenly he was to meet his maker, could I have changed my level of attention? Unlikely. And so, at his funeral, upon seeing the once broad and lively man sunken into a small and lifeless body, I could only think of how he faced what all living things must face and I hope he faced it with integrity.

That loss of power, the unexpected and unyielding nature of death, is to me, the only thing more frightening than falling in love...which I only just did not long ago.

I read poetry and prose every day telling me of the dramatic and beautiful parts of love...the grandma's love...selfless and charming, the lover's love...chaotic and passionate...the friend's love...effortless and fun...but none of it is meaningful because it is still inside your power to love these people. You can choose not to.

Andy's love hit me like a truck. I didn't want it. I didn't deserve it. I didn't need it. I sure didn't face it with integrity. I could have existed, angry and dark, my whole life, and lived a pretty full existence. I had my petri dishes, my booze, my smokes...I had it all. Red lipstick and Janis Joplin...what more could a girl need?

A girl needs concrete. A girl needs more than a metaphor. I sometimes, stupidly, pine away for all the lost nights of drama and lively conversation at Denny's with who ever might have been there at the time...and then I wake up next to a man who breaks his knees, sacrifices his body, devotes his thoughts and his life to me and the son we created, and I realize that all the late nights with coffee jitters and tobacco stained fingertips, while artsy and edgy, were Grandma compared to the truck-force of the love of this man. My husband. And this love, like childbirth before it and death beyond it, is something I can't control. But I breathe deep and tell myself that all living things face this. I can make it through because I must. Lesser have faced it, and greater have faced it. I can face it too. It might destroy me in its sheer FULLNESS...it overwhelms me daily, but I face it.

How could I have ever written anything abstract?