The Creation of Magical Beings
I lost Mom last April. After receiving the call that she was struggling, I hopped on a plane without packing. I stayed in the hospital with her. My brothers, sister, niece, and nephew--we occupied every available surface--and took turns laying beside her in the bed. And when we understood she wasn't going to get better, we took her home to die. We sang to her, and told her stories, though she already seemed to be on her journey. She only stayed with us another day.
Because I had not packed, I wore her clothes, her pajamas, and after she left I slept in her bed. But sleeping was not easy, not with her memories crowding my thoughts, and the empty space of her absence yawning inside me, and filling the room with the loss of her. One night a string of words rolled through my thoughts, so I wrote them down. They became the poem, "She is a Magical Being", and I'm moved that Elephant Journal published it the other day.
