we got to go.
so, yesterday, at the funeral service
the masons wore special aprons.
they put a sprig of evergreen on the casket.
the world war 2 veterans saluted.
and we said goodbye.
leanne read something,
then marla read something.
then i tried to read a letter
that lee’s dad wrote to his father.
he had asked me to read it
because he wouldn’t be [...]
he owned grocery stores for most of his life.
he’d tell me about cutting meat behind the counter
or the boxes of produce,
or, after the race riots in baltimore in the 60s,
how his store was burned to the asphalt,
how he drove up days later to see it
and the only thing left on the lot
was a can of [...]
i told myself
not to wait
until some end
to remember.
i knew i’d forget all the little things.
every year on our anniversary leanne and i sit and have dinner
and think about one small thing from each year of our life together.
just a straw.
everytime we drive somewhere and leanne sees
a magpie, she says
“hello mr. magpie, howse mrs. magpie doing?”
and [...]
while the prognosis has never been better,
lately, leanne hasn’t been able to get out of bed.
if she does, she walks around the house with the face of death,
the face of bone pain that reaches her jaw, her spine, everywhere.
it’s the neupogen.
or it’s the chemo.
it’s something, though.
the grind of making through every day is harder than [...]
the other night
leanne and i talked about the story.
you know the one by now:
our story.
we didn’t talk about what had happened yesterday,
or the day we saw the petscan,
or really what we had seen,
or even what we have seen and heard and felt
over the past six weeks.
instead we talked about what we’ll talk about
later.
how we’ll sit [...]
