Belle Reve at 5

♥ In Memoriam ♥

(September 29, 1938 – October 21, 2008)

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting…
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”  -Mary Oliver

Dear Mom,

It’s been five years to the day since the last time I saw you face-to-face.  Maybe you remember it, maybe you don’t.  Is it possible you know everything that happened with W and M and the house and the madness?  None of the shadowy stuff is worth going back over now – not at this stage of our lives.  We all miss you.  I miss you.  It hurt like hell for so long; it was like losing a limb. When you passed on, the fear and grief crippled me, muddied my psychic landscape. Part of the time I was in quicksand.  The other part of the time, I was encased in concrete.  Your physical absence provoked shifts and changes so cataclysmic that I’m just now understanding what happened and where you really are.  But mostly I’m finding out where I am right now.  Moments are starting to flow together again.  Being close to other people is less frightening to me now and happiness is more important to me as a personal path than a cycle of desire leading to desire met.

True to form, some days I still hit the wall, which I’m certain, comes as no surprise to you.  When those moments slide around me fog me over, I see myself sitting on the couch next to you in your big brown chair looking at you and listening to your voice.  These rendezvous bring you to mind a little while and I feel comforted.  Each time we meet in my mind is the same as the last.  You might be wearing a different outfit or have your hair done differently.  There are gardenias on the table like the ones you used to pick for me in California.  We start up where we left off and talk about the usual things – quotidian details. W and the Big Easy. TJ and all those kids and grandkids. My cat and (nowadays) Squeezer.  We two are having cold drinks in front of the telly, munching happily on those potato chips you could never get enough of with Ranch dressing for us both.

Laughing about all of it.  The whole damn thing.

Like the time you found all those socks of Dad’s strewn in the backyard not long after he passed on!  Or the hot dresses you and Margaret and Joyce and them used to buy in Park Hill?  Brother Rabbit is still our mum subject, isn’t he?

You ask me about my troubles, I cry sometimes out of my loss and my grief.  Or perhaps it’s plain selfish upset at the thought of having to imagine you just to speak to you; conjure my own mother, my flesh.  All vapor now and candles.  Remembering the lone piper at Fort Logan makes it all real again.  Neat white headstones, orderly in a way death often is.  Finality gives a situation structure, gravitas.  Watching the geese fly overhead, I sang the words quietly under my breath, “Sail bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, over the sea to Skye. Carry the lad who’s born to be king over the sea to Skye[…]”  That day at the cemetery was lonely for Sissy as well.  Brother Rabbit was conspicuously absent that day and has, for all intents and purposes, remained so since then.

Earlier today, while lighting candles to celebrate you, it occurred to me to thank you again and eternally for what you shared with me during the time we had together:  Dinah Washington singing This Bitter Earth, chocolate chip cookies, abundant Christmases, patent leather shoes for Easter, a beautiful singing voice, appreciation for classic cinema and classic fashion (“Mixing and matching never goes out of style. As long as you have a few classic pieces, you’ve got what you need!”), Chanel No. 5, Jackie O sunglasses (the bigger the better), the NFL, major holidays.  Love, food. Lots of food. And protection. Against life, protection against pain. Protection against growing up has been the most challenging to overcome.

Five years ago today you let go.  Thankfully, all the pain ended completely for you that day and in a way you freed us both.

Gratitude always. Gratitude all ways.

Your daughter,

Artemis L. Greene

Dolore di Essere Lasciato Alle Spalle

“If you have ever lost someone very important to you,

then you already know how it feels,

and if you haven’t,

you cannot possibly imagine it.”

–Lemony Snicket

Remembering the loss of my own Belle Reve is like swallowing shiny glass.  Remembering how my life imploded and the beginning of my 5-year spin is like swallowing shiny glass.  When Mama passed, the moment she passed, I was rigid with terror  — still petrified still sleepless still close to losing my mind after being there for almost two months.

At the end of July, Brother Rabbit called, said Mama was hospitalized after having  half of her stomach removed.  Took too much Advil for the broken hip pain, he said.  Rehab, he said.  Not cooperating with her doctors, he said.  She wouldn’t sign the Power of Attorney, he said.  Too much for him to handle on his own, he said.  After all, wife worked all day, kids went to school all day.  And he, who hadn’t worked in at least five years, just could not do it all on his own.

At the end of August, Brother Rabbit called again.  Not getting better, he said.  Had to move her into a different rehab, he said.  It’s getting expensive, he said.  Not cooperating with her doctors, he said.  She’s not talking, he said.  She wouldn’t sign the Power of Attorney,  he said.  Too much for him to handle on his own, he said.  After all, wife worked all day, kids went to school all day.  And he, who hadn’t worked in at least five years, just could not do it all on his own.

Everything that could have been sold was sold:  bed, art, linens, clothes, jewelry, kitchenware, all my furniture.  I loaded up the car, said goodbye to my life in Oregon and headed south to Belle Reve and the dessert.

When Belle Reve ceased to breathe, I felt my blood seize and thicken.    The veil covered me whole, my breath seeped out through my nose and between blinks of my eye, someone in my head started to scream…

WHERE IS SHE WHERE IS SHE WHERE IS SHE WHERE IS SHE OH MY GOD I WAS IN THE OTHER ROOM SHE LEFT WITHOUT ME I LET HER DIE ALONE OH DEAR GOD OH MY DEAR GOD SHE’S DEAD SHE’S DEAD SHE’S NEVER COMING BACK OH FUCK OH JESUS THIS HURTS THIS HURTS I WANT TO GO WITH YOU PLEASE PLEASE WAIT WAIT FOR ME JUST WAIT FOR ME PLEASE MAMA DON’T GO YET PLEASE WAIT BY THE DOOR WE’LL GO TOGETHER I’LL GO WITH YOU DON’T BE AFRAID OH MY OH MY GOD OH GOD OH GOD SHE’S GONE WHY DIDN’T YOU WAIT WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL MY NAME

I — CAN’T — BREATHE — PLEASE — GOD — TAKE — ME — TOO  — TAKE — ME — TAKE — ME

PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE

Mrs. Red-Haired Hospice Case-Manager busied herself then, straightening the nightgown, wiping a small bubble of yellow bile from the corner of the mouth, all the while telling me what to expect when the ambulance arrived.  Standing next to my mother’s bed, preoccupied with the persistent screaming no one else could hear, I reached for the brand new bottle of Morphine.  “Fifteen drops should do it, ” I heard the screamer say.  Fifteen drops stopped the screamer but only temporarily.

I — CAN’T — BREATHE — PLEASE — GOD — TAKE — ME — TOO  — TAKE — ME — TAKE — ME

Upstairs, Brother Rabbit was watching television.  I called him down to say goodbye to Belle Reve.  The tremors started in my vital organs and shook me almost to the point of concussion.  And then, the waiting… Waiting for her to walk into the room while I slept, waiting for her to call my name and tell me where to pick her up.  Waiting for her to come back — even now that I’ve died and come to.

Belle Reve (Introduction)

“Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.”    -George Eliot

Belle Reve is the fictional ancestral home of Blanche DuBois and her sister, Stella Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.  Blanche speaks wistfully about the Belle Reve that was.  In their younger years, the sisters experienced Belle Reve as a safe haven — a fortress of protection and certainty.  When Stella moves away, Blanche remains in Mississippi to care for their aging relatives while maintaining Belle Reve as best she can.  Eventually, Blanche comes to view Belle Reve  as a kind of emotional demilitarized zone that buffers her diaphanous fantasy of Southern aristocratic ease against the insistence of treacherous physical and financial decline.

When Blanche finally reaches New Orleans, Belle Reve has already slipped through her fingers.  After years of tawdry scandal, hefty estate taxes  and the demise of their remaining family members, the once-grand plantation is left to crumble under the weight of dysfunction and debt.  And while the house — the physical structure itself  — is certainly important to the her,  it is the memory of Belle Reve that Blanche finds it nearly impossible to relinquish.  She knows that without Bell Reve the world will never be the same.

On October 21, 2008, Belle Reve died again.

I died with her.