They said it would be heavy. I honestly thought they meant the velvet bag and the box of ashes I had to carry away from the funeral home. What they really meant was everything that came after.
You sat in the passenger side next to me, well on the floor actually, because i was terrified of tipping the box over and spilling dust everywhere. I kept waiting for the music to turn sad, for thunder to peal somewhere in distance, for the sun to hide behind a cloud. Instead, a car horn beeped, my blinker clicked steadily in the car, and I waited for red lights to turn green.
Life was very normal in the world around me. Like I belonged in a dream and stepped into the real world without belonging to it or being part of it. And then I began to understand what they meant when they said your ashes would be heavy.
I finally understand why the color for mourning is black. For one thing, it's easier. A choice you don't have to make at the beginning of the day. But the real reason is that life isn't in color anymore and everything looks the same anyway. Maybe if the world looks at me in my mournful clothes they will understand, just for a second, how heavy your ashes really are. Maybe they will forgive my tears at the grocery store that seem so out of place, maybe I will be invisible to the advertisements and tweets about Mother's Day, maybe Google will shoot a message to all my credit card companies that I don't want my mother's maiden name used as my security question anymore.
You see, even though I took the urn home and put it where you asked me to, I carry your ashes with me no matter where I go. Someone once told me if you removed all the empty space that exists within the atoms of the Empire State Building, you would be left with an extremely heavy building the size of a grain of rice. That must be why your ashes are so heavy. All the love and memories we shared still carry the same mass even though your physical volume has been reduced.
They told me your ashes would be heavy. And I'm growing stronger every day to carry them.
In loving memory of Lonna Dee Wilson <3
ReplyDeleteVery much enjoyed the read, very real for me to day, as I write this the ashes of a close friend are yet still cooling here in Bozeman, and still too hot for the family to pick up. The "Cancer" took him, and not in a good way. The 'weight' of the living is what burdens me most. He and I enjoyed time together, though I suspect today, he'd appreciate having "That" conversation - again. In Christ. Deus gubernat navem .
ReplyDeleteWow! You communicated so clearly the void that is in this world without Mom. Thank you for sharing so deeply what it feels like! I am just glad that this is not the end, but that we will be reunited in our heavenly home above.
ReplyDeleteSuch power in the pen of a fertile and generously supplied mind. My sorrow and many tears for her departing this life pale in comparison to those who she raised and had daily interaction. What a rock of a Christian mother and to me the best I have ever met, her fruit will undoubtedly endure for many generations. Praise God with great fervor you were born to her!
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