(Is it ever too late to speak your truth?)
“Grief’s arms reach long and deep, its wiry fingertips scratching the skin of your throat, pressing, releasing.”
This is what I remember thinking and feeling as my brother, Valentino , and I gave a last, gentle push of Mom’s gurney into the hearse . This very same man , who moments earlier, wrapped mom’s body in a white shroud, then carefully zipped her in a claret-colored coccoon is now closing both doors of the hearse and shaking my brother’s hand, then mine. His door shuts and we hear the engine rev. Slowly, he moves forward, turning right on Real Street toward Alexander Ave and I notice his bowtie and crisp white shirt reflected in the side mirror. I bow my head.
Holding Mom’s hand at Christopher House Hospice (Austin, Texas)
I don’t know what to do next. And the rain. Valentino and I are just standing in the rain. We walk back to mom’s room and gather our things. Taking one last visual sweep of Room 7, I decide to bring the small vase of burnt orange roses with me. I need to hold something, to carry something. As we walk pass the nurses’s station, we stop to thank Dr. B and the social worker who made sure that we heard mom’s last breath, motioning me closer to the bed. Valentino was on mom’s left side, whispering. I couldn’t move.
We’re outside again in the garden. Valentino starts the car, the wipers swish and he guides us toward Real Street. For a moment, I’m thinking he wants to catch up to the hearse and follow mom all the way to the crematorium; but he continues down Alexander Avenue until we reach my hotel. It’s raining harder now and I don’t know what to tell my brother. I open my door and am greeted by the rain , falling colder and harder. “I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon and we’ll make plans,” I hear my brother say. My door closes and I’m standing alone, in the rain, with a small vase of roses.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: My brother, Valentino, moments after mom’s death (Christopher House Hospice, Austin, TX) Ruben Mauricio
