Resting in Alone

This one is a little bit heavy - about my wife's passing & viewing.

Photo by Nedim T. on Unsplash

read or listen:

The children will be home in a few hours,
I’ll tell them their Mother has passed.
I know what to say, because she told me what to say,

“Momma’s body wasn’t strong enough to support her spirit, so her spirit had to leave…”
“Momma died?”
“Yes, Momma died.”

We will hold each other and fall apart into the dirt of our driveway.
That will be after sunrise,
now her body lays on the table I prepared in our room,
covered with the blanket she lay beneath throughout her illness.

There will be a viewing here, like she wanted.
Three days.

The children will gather lavender and sage from the land
surrounding her body with the fragrance of homestead,
coming as close to touching her as they’ll let themselves.

I’ll ask if they want me to pull back the cloth to see her face once more
they’ll each slowly shake their heads no,
but they’ll study her shape,
spinning webs in their minds I can’t understand.

Now I lay in our bed,
her body just a few feet away,
staring at the back of my eyelids,
in our home that is more quiet than its ever been
waiting for the children,
breathing
so slowly.

Alone has never been so large as it is now,
alone is part of the hurt,
but only a small part,
of what is to come.

I am done.
We are done.
There will be a new family made from the parts of us in the dirt.

Now, I try to rest
in alone.