Dear Claire
Dear Claire,
The day after you died everything felt significant. Prophecy in every movement. I left work just before lunch (a weeping sodden mess held together by kleenex and desperate will) and ran a bath. I love my massive copper bathtub. I sat in the pale gold afternoon light and looked out the window at the tree across the street by Harold's yard. It's a massive spruce probably 50' high, thick and that dark shadowy green old spruce trees get. The wind was blowing and the branches were waving and undulating, up and down, back and forth. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
It felt significant but I can't tell you how. Sometimes I'm surprised at the moments that stay with me. Often they're just... random moments. Nothing special about them, nothing to key me in that for whatever reason I'm always going to remember those seconds. But I knew, watching the branches sway, that I would remember it and it would always remind me of you. (It also made me think about complex aerodynamics and the tensile strength of tree branches. Maybe that's why. Science.)
Badger did your eulogy. It was - and I say this with no hyperbole or exaggeration - perfect. It was funny and pogignant. He reminded me of things about you I'd forgotten. Somehow (and I do not understand how) he captured you perfectly. You would have loved it. Well, you would have laughed and been shocked but truly deep down, delighted. Everyone was rapt and at the end, we all agreed it was excellent.
He brought a bottle of scotch to your graveside and along with peach roses we drank shots and quietly set the glasses on the vault before it was lowered into the ground. It was good and unique, and it felt right. I drank one of the last slugs from the bottle even though I hate scotch. It tasted like perfume and turpentine. I can't believe you liked that stuff. I put the rose on your vault and whispered "Good night, Claire." What else do you say?
You had an open casket. How can something be you and look so little like you? Only the hair seemed right. I touched your hand and it felt waxy and rubbery. I brushed your earlobe. I tried to reconcile the body with my understanding of you and fell short. It is the spark of life that is us; the body is just an envelope and when the spark is gone, it is flesh and dust and all of the you-ness is... gone. Perhaps you were right and you are with God. I hope sincerely it is so.
I wept so much on Friday that when I woke up the next morning the skin under my left eye was bruised and chapped. I didn't even know that was a thing. I cannot remember the last time I cried so much over someone. I do not believe I ever have.
I told Badger how I knew you; he had no idea. I think I shocked him. Funny, the little secrets we keep. He wouldn't have judged. I had thought about making a little rope flower and putting it in your casket but I worried about it being the wrong thng to do, even though it was such an integral part of you. In the end I suppose we are left trying to respect the living who remain, and honouring the idea of the person we want to be remembered as, and not the reality. But I knew who you were and I honour that, too.
Craig was there; he heard my voice (talking to some very nice lady you knew through your choir) and looked up at me and the movement caught my eye. We recognized each other immediately even without having seen each other for years. He looks the same. We're supposed to get together for lunch next week and catch up. Such a strange reconnection: he was the only other person, aside from Badger, who I knew there from before.
Bren is coming to town next week and he, Badger and I are going to get together at Buchanans for a drink to send you off properly, the way we remember you.
I miss you, my dear. I miss your precision and particularity. My world is smaller without you. I wish I'd made more of the time we had. Please forgive me for the times I must have disappointed you or let you down and know it was no reflection on your value, only my own weakness and smallness and failings as a person.
If there is a God I hope you are with him (her?) she answers all your questions.
The day after you died everything felt significant. Prophecy in every movement. I left work just before lunch (a weeping sodden mess held together by kleenex and desperate will) and ran a bath. I love my massive copper bathtub. I sat in the pale gold afternoon light and looked out the window at the tree across the street by Harold's yard. It's a massive spruce probably 50' high, thick and that dark shadowy green old spruce trees get. The wind was blowing and the branches were waving and undulating, up and down, back and forth. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
It felt significant but I can't tell you how. Sometimes I'm surprised at the moments that stay with me. Often they're just... random moments. Nothing special about them, nothing to key me in that for whatever reason I'm always going to remember those seconds. But I knew, watching the branches sway, that I would remember it and it would always remind me of you. (It also made me think about complex aerodynamics and the tensile strength of tree branches. Maybe that's why. Science.)
Badger did your eulogy. It was - and I say this with no hyperbole or exaggeration - perfect. It was funny and pogignant. He reminded me of things about you I'd forgotten. Somehow (and I do not understand how) he captured you perfectly. You would have loved it. Well, you would have laughed and been shocked but truly deep down, delighted. Everyone was rapt and at the end, we all agreed it was excellent.
He brought a bottle of scotch to your graveside and along with peach roses we drank shots and quietly set the glasses on the vault before it was lowered into the ground. It was good and unique, and it felt right. I drank one of the last slugs from the bottle even though I hate scotch. It tasted like perfume and turpentine. I can't believe you liked that stuff. I put the rose on your vault and whispered "Good night, Claire." What else do you say?
You had an open casket. How can something be you and look so little like you? Only the hair seemed right. I touched your hand and it felt waxy and rubbery. I brushed your earlobe. I tried to reconcile the body with my understanding of you and fell short. It is the spark of life that is us; the body is just an envelope and when the spark is gone, it is flesh and dust and all of the you-ness is... gone. Perhaps you were right and you are with God. I hope sincerely it is so.
I wept so much on Friday that when I woke up the next morning the skin under my left eye was bruised and chapped. I didn't even know that was a thing. I cannot remember the last time I cried so much over someone. I do not believe I ever have.
I told Badger how I knew you; he had no idea. I think I shocked him. Funny, the little secrets we keep. He wouldn't have judged. I had thought about making a little rope flower and putting it in your casket but I worried about it being the wrong thng to do, even though it was such an integral part of you. In the end I suppose we are left trying to respect the living who remain, and honouring the idea of the person we want to be remembered as, and not the reality. But I knew who you were and I honour that, too.
Craig was there; he heard my voice (talking to some very nice lady you knew through your choir) and looked up at me and the movement caught my eye. We recognized each other immediately even without having seen each other for years. He looks the same. We're supposed to get together for lunch next week and catch up. Such a strange reconnection: he was the only other person, aside from Badger, who I knew there from before.
Bren is coming to town next week and he, Badger and I are going to get together at Buchanans for a drink to send you off properly, the way we remember you.
I miss you, my dear. I miss your precision and particularity. My world is smaller without you. I wish I'd made more of the time we had. Please forgive me for the times I must have disappointed you or let you down and know it was no reflection on your value, only my own weakness and smallness and failings as a person.
If there is a God I hope you are with him (her?) she answers all your questions.