Filling Up

During the middle of the week, I received an email that a classmate’s mother had died. We all wrote blogs together a year ago in class, so I knew about her family, even though I didn’t know her family. She wrote about her father’s death, growing up and living by the beach. Sending a message over Facebook seemed too impersonal. Even when people were sending flowers, it just didn’t feel right. Yet, going to the funeral almost seemed too intimate. My mind came up with the most fucked up excuses, including the price of gas. I was paralyzed what to do, and my death trigger was in full force.

When my sister died in college, I was full of anger and grief. I was angry at the people who didn’t acknowledge it and the grief was so intense I don’t remember much of my undergraduate education. What kept coming up this week though was how Cindy showed up at the funeral home. Cindy and I had language arts class together in high school. We never hung out outside of class, but when she showed up three years later to show her support, I remember sitting next to her in the funeral home feeling her Catholic, Latina heart. Just her being there meant a lot and fifteen years later, I still remember. I was blathering this all through tears to my ex-priest friend while deciding whether or not to drive to the service.

I ran into my neighbor from where I used to live a year ago at Whole Foods on Friday. It’s been almost two years since his domestic partner was killed by a bus. They were together sixteen years. He said it wasn’t getting better. I understood.

I called my Aunt Chris Saturday morning because I wrote about my bee sting when I was little this past week, which happened at her house. She was painting and went to move a desk which was bolted down. She had forgotten that my Uncle Thom had bolted it down years ago so it wouldn’t tip over. It hasn’t yet been a year since he died of cancer.

Sarah, my friend growing up, posted this article when her check was missing money. She works for the military as a mid-wife. Her mom, who worked as a waitress, never lived to see Sarah’s children. The working class aren’t getting paid and can’t afford gas to drive to work. Meanwhile, the people in Congress never have a missing paycheck and I’m going to bet they always have gas in their SUV.

After the service, when I was looking at the collage of pictures of my classmate’s mother, the wash of grief came. There are no words of comfort for death, I have found.

On the way home, I should have filled up my gas tank, but I was too exhausted emotionally and politically to do so. I came home and took a nap, filling up. Then on my walk I imagined myself doused in gasoline rising up like the Sinead O’Connor song “The Phoenix from the Flame” and had a good laugh for my dead sister and best friend.