I sat next to and by the same loved ones I did ten years ago.
This time, the child that was growing in G's body back then stood ten years old and somber.
When R, A, D, T and the two small, tiny-faced children went up to do a cover of Iron and WIne (and Calexico)'s He Lays in the Reins as a familly-and-friend band to do the last tribute to him, it killed me.
One more gift to bring
we may well find you laid;
Like your steed in his reins,
Tangled too tight and too long to fight.
How much pain does a family have to see, and how many friends have to keep from drowning?
When we first saw each other, we said nothing. We just walked toward each other, put our arms around each other, and I held him as strongly as any man could as he sobbed into my shoulder.
Such moments are the gold and the privilege I am blessed with.
There are no words but the sunlight that poured down on us that day amidst the rain and thunder and lightening that made green of the grass sublime.
I am home now. I arrived at the airport to the beauty waiting for me with a handful of flowers. I know when I need her to, she will hold me as strongly as any woman can and I will sob her into her shoulder.
But such things unravel slowly. Bathing and tending to a death by one's own hand is such an odd and dark blossoming in its opening.
It will be my time to come undone, soon.
But for now, my arms are still wrapped around him in that funeral home from a few days ago. The futile, albeit romantic, gesture of trying to suck venom from the bite of a snake.
be well; be loved,
k.
(image: Ahndraya Parlato via untrustyou tumblr)
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