Untitled--9.

9. 
I wanted to keep this a secret. I didn’t want anybody to have to know. But you were wife and mother and never are those praises sung. Sometimes on gravestones. Sometimes. But that is why I decided to talk about it. Part of me had hoped that this could be a secret ritual, since there were only women of our blood. Part of me hopes that some can be dead and gone with only secret markers that the winds sweep away. These rituals are so painful.

We review names. You are Doina. I am your granddaughter, not your daughter. That is your daughter. You have another daughter, who lives far away in Romania. But you probably can’t recall her face. We try to look at photo albums together. We try to bring dignity to the bodily tickings watched by the clock. Maybe that is the only way anybody remembers anything after a while. Time seems artificial. Maybe you don’t perceive it.

You watch Jimmy Stewart movies and fear-based news. I wonder if it all keeps you alive somehow. I wonder if it is like watching those movies for the first time again or whether they trigger some kind of train of memories. I joke that the horrible news keeps you alive. Maybe Jimmy Stewart is an angel of optimism.


But I will be back here again someday with someone else. I don’t want to think about that. No maybes this time. You must be certain of the devil. You must be certain of death. It may only be me dealing with it. I don’t know how other people will take it or whether I will have any help. But now it’s time for me to go. It’s time for you to go, too.

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