in my cereal.
on my car seat.
on windowsills
and sinks and lydia and the toaster oven
and even a banana and even one time in our front yard.
i’ve been finding leanne’s hair for years.
in just wiping my hand across the bathroom floor,
i could gather enough for a nifty toupee.
lee’s hair has been falling
out for years…it’s just grown back….
or [...]
lydia talks a lot.
she says straaawberries and crack-ars and, yes, howey towedohoppews.
but there are other words now,
words i had no idea she knew,
or would know, at this point.
words like:
doctor
medicine
not feel good
die
feel better
why?
why?
why?
hard
the last one gets me.
how we tried since this all happened to get her to sleep
in her bed. and how she’d say:
it’s too hard
—–
when [...]
today, it’s still here. well, at least most of it. tomorrow will be different. mom, remember in 4th grade a week before my big science project was due and i had yet to decide on or do an experiment and then brilliantly :) decided on comparing 10 different shampoos to [...]
the best kind of cancer you can get
that’s what they say, the doctors.
like the best way to split your lip (on the edge of a foil yogurt top)
or the best weather in which to have a mental break (when the sun is out, but behind some clouds)
or the best kind of nausea (at home, with [...]
once, many years ago, i wrote an email to my mom
who was on vacation
that i needed her to read.
your mom died, it said.
so maybe that was practice
for suffering, then telling about suffering
which, as a friend once said, strangely few of us
grow graceful in.
the snow won’t stop falling here in denver.
it has more to say than [...]
when leanne walked out of st. joseph’s today.
they offered her a wheelchair, but she walked…
all the way to the car.
and she looked GOOD, people.
before she left though, i got a lesson from the nurse
in how to give her $3000 shots in the belly.
no slips allowed or it’s my monthly paycheck.
she didn’t cry.
and we collected even [...]
it’s 3am
and lydia is curled up next to me in bed.
we’re long,
in the way that her entire body
head to toes
is touching mine.
the funny thing is that at 2 1/2
years old, she’s about the same size
as leanne.
so, in some ways it feels like leanne
is home.
but she’s not.
the fever keeps
coming back.
it’s strange because we’ve been together
so much [...]
