For my mom

...with love and regret

My mom about 30 years ago, 10 years before she died

Pointillism is painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Brain damage is an injury in which dots dissolve and so do you. First they swirl, twirl, swarm away in giant constellations. A seemingly random shuffling of scenes strolling or speeding to expiration.

Some things have a future, some have run out of time, some turn into scraps. Each scrap abruptly ends, each dot abruptly blurs. A tear-ravaged cheek. Perhaps the cheek is mine. Someone’s name is being called, perhaps the name is mine. Everything you see or hear is breaking apart.

I hear, “Someone looks like hell.” Perhaps they mean me. Maybe I can be seen, haven’t fully disappeared. Bits and pieces of beautiful things waft in, then out. My mom loved lilacs, my mom loved birds, my mom loved lilies of the valley. I planted them for her.

The last time I saw my mom, she was being zipped into a bright yellow body bag. I kissed her forehead, which felt like washed silk. She did not live in her face anymore. She was being zipped from the feet up by someone who didn’t know her, who would never think of her again

Zipped into a raincoat-looking thing, the color of an item from L.L. Bean, the kind you can “sweat, stretch and live in,” if you’re alive. “Breathable, meant for adventure” and meant to last forever, too.

The next time was at her funeral. My daughter and I were ushered into a private room to “view the body.” She was lying in a coffin with her teddy bear and “teddy chicken,” too. She slept with them those last years, and we made sure they were tucked in with her. She was supposed to look good. She didn’t. She looked waxy and dead. Three months earlier, there had been an accident. My heart was broken and so was my head.

You cross a threshold, because you have to, then return or not to the world left behind. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. There are no legends to lead you, no links to click, no Transformation-for-Dummies guides. No compass. No calendar. Perhaps you look back. Perhaps you don’t. Perhaps you come back. Perhaps you can’t.