HAVE YOU EVER HEARD A DEATH RATTLE BEFORE?

have you ever hear a death rattle before? do you think it will live up to it's name?

methinks that, though it did, it is way over-rated. for myself, it involved no final heaving sigh; no clutching last embrace; not even a lingering blank stare at the corner of the ceiling; no half-gasped words meant to have meaning or give life some direction.

no, it involved shallow, jagged breathes, vomit & medication, afterwards it involved heavy epiphanies & hearing jokes uttered by strangers, just doing their jobs.

i believe that the only thing that made it bearable would have to be above the right sole of someone very dear to me. one sentence: 'heaven's dead when you get sad.'

for some reason that one sentence put things into perspective, it made so much sense, that it changed the whole grieving process for me. it made it seem like the days' previous occurrences had happened fifty years ago.

my last words to my mother were: 'goodnight mom, i love you,' this is after having an impromptu dance in our living room. by then i had already known her time was coming to a close. we all did; & yet to us, it was all still too sudden; it was still too soon. although the alternative seems like hell. the prospect of watching my mom losing what little health she had left seems like the end of all hope.

performing c.p.r. on her had left a taste in my mouth, that still haunts me to this day. the taste of tobacco and death.

for the next month i was torn between non-existence & a forlorn sense of regret. half of the time i was only there physically, the other half was spent pondering how things might be if they had gone differently; one minor detail examined a bit more; one thought voiced; one sentence not spoken; would it have made a difference?

i am beginning to wonder, maybe, somehow, if i could go back and change things, would i have done things differently? ask anyone that question, and they will tell you, 'yes, i would have done things differently, many things' the problem with hindsight is that it only occurs after the facts.

i just wish that i knew more about my mom. what she was like when she was young. what here dreams were, what she battled and what she lost. what was she like when i was too young to remember. most of all i want to know why i stopped trying to get my mom to quit smoking.

i remember taking my mom's cartons & breaking all of the cigarettes in them & soaking them all in water, so she couldn't smoke the left-over tobacco. i remember climbing up a tree, a very tall tree, being to scared to come down, i waited there for half an hour for my mom to come & bid to to come down. i remember sneaking past her while she sat on the couch, the treasure of unsanctioned ice cream bright in my eyes. i remember sledding down the hills, with her and my sister.

what i remember the most is the way she smiled. the slow upturn of the the corners of her mouth, the way crows feet formed on the corners of her eyes; trying to pluck them out. the look of unconditional love that can only be peered through the eyes of a mother.

sometimes i wonder if what i do remember has already been twisted by memory. i wonder what i have changed from what actually happened. i wonder if i give her enough credit. the problem with memories, is we tend to only truly remember the bad things, everything else just gets compacted, simpler, more imagination than memory.

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