The last day

...A dispatch from bewilderness

If I belonged at all, I belonged in the land of creative, inventive, surprising. I connected with extravagant, incongruent gestures, disparate, daring, outside the box. And I connected with you. I knew things then and had words to say them.

I put Band-Aids on your boo-boos, and gave you baths with Little Duckie and wrapped you in towels, and laced up the orthopedic shoes your dad didn’t use when you were with him. I brought you to the Pediatric GI doctor and did what he told me to do to make you feel better and stay better.

Before you were born, when I was your home, I imagined reading to you. After you were here, we read The Velveteen Rabbit and The Runaway Bunny and Good Night, Moon again and again, and you don’t remember, but I do.

That was then. This is now. I stare at you—as if you were here—with all that is left of my focus and all that is left of my mind. I will you to know I love you. I will you to know I always have.

The DNA fused in genes began with the birth of a star billions of years ago. They say I will return to the stars what they lent to me while I was here.

I am of half a mind, then a quarter, then an eighth. I hear a voice say, “Tell me if it hurts.” I can’t reply.

It’s been a long time since I heard my voice. And I may not hear it again.

The last day on Earth. I see you with my heart.

Things blend more than before. You and I in Nantucket. Feeding mama ducks and babies. You are three or four. We are holding hands, warm waves under feet. And now? I am nothing. I am no one. But once I was your mom.