From my Daughter, on the passing of my Mother

I have never posted anything on this blog by anyone else. This is the first.

When my father announced he had a girlfriend, we were happy for him. He is out and living again. He spent so long in the heroic effort of keeping my mother as safe as could be, as happy as could be, as well as could be. Who could deny him? For so long he watched her slip away to become less, less, less. Who can judge him?

Yet, for some, for many, it seems too soon. It is not quite six months since my mother's death.

This is by my daughter, Sef Rachel Tritt, who wishes she knew the woman I did and had that woman as her grandmother. She wrote this upon my father's announcement.


I still see her face:
eyes clear, staring up,
mouth open,
peaceful,
no fear.
She waited till she was
alone,
a rare moment.
He would not leave her side.
He refused.
He loved her—
too much, perhaps.
Still does.

I still see her face.
When I close my eyes
she is there.
Her eyes, once so blue,
are gray,
wide open but do not see.
Could not see me,
could not see him
crying for the emptiness she left.
Does he see her face
as I see her,
pale and cold?

I still see her face
when I think about death.
She waited.
I told her I loved her.
So did he,
again and again.
I went on my way
expecting to see her in the morning,
alive.
But now when I remember her,
I see her face,
stiff,
like a stone,
when I close my eyes.

Toward the Sea

There is a room with three walls and no doors. A ceiling but no floor. There is sand and there is ocean water and there are people. Throngs of people. The waves wash in and out from the open end of the room, through the throngs, against the back wall. All is sepia-washed walls and light and people and I am there looking out into the ocean.

Along the left wall is a couch. Red, leather, extending the length of the room to ocean-edge of the wall. It is for me. I don’t swim and the couch is for me. The water is up to my waist and I hoist myself up onto the couch, slide myself oceanward, people saying things to me to which I pay no attention, patting me on the legs, the sides, some sad, some happy. I hear them, but register nothing. My wet bathing suit sticks to the leather. Everyone is in a bathing suit or less. All in the water but me.

And the body. Handed out, over the heads of the people, hand to hand to hand, my mother. I cannot see her through the hands, the arms, the bodies. She moves slowly seaward.

I have reached the end of the room, the edge of the couch but the people go on, the handing of her body overheads continues out, out, out until I barely see, until the water rises, until the people disappear, until her body slips to the sea.

It's a long way out. You're resting. You have a long time and no where to go. I can only watch as you recede.