Late Reflection

    This seems like the closing of another chapter in my life. Perhaps one that started around the time I parted ways with Mike. Perhaps it is the same chapter and it started much earlier. I suppose its useless to examine that closely. The point is that this is the end of the road for part of me. I can feel that. I know that I am slowly dying inside. I checked back into my dusty memory to see what I was doing during other phases like this, when someone in my life was lost, close or otherwise. I wanted to say this was the first time I'd had to endure something like this alone. But that would be a lie.
    When Daddy died, I was very much alone. Robbie had gone. Garland was overseas and not yet a real player on the stage. I had my poetry, my music, my solitude. I didn't know what it was then to have a partner. It was beyond me then to wish for the things I wish for now, a hand to hold, a shoulder to nuzzle or cry on; a warm body to lie next to all day and stare out the window at nothing and chat about nothing. Someone who would bring me a cup of tea and say nothing at all, they would just know that I needed it.

    When Garland died, I was living with a roommate who double-crossed me. Hawk was there for me, but I didn't show him everything, in fact I remember trying to hide my grief. I felt ashamed. Shamed about being engaged in the first place. Shamed about knowing that it was not the path for me but trying to take it anyway. It was an easy path at the time. It was something like a bad TV show, and I knew better.  Again, I had my poetry, my music.

    When Hawk died, I had things to do. I had to be there to collect and distribute his things. I had to deal with Hawk's remains, and his roommate, who needed to get a life. The sense of purpose I had at such a young age, doing such important things, took some of the sting away for the moment. I had Freeway, so to speak but he found his way to the door. Russ, well, Russ was my way of avoiding the whole drama. It felt so much better to be made love to, to be ravished and ached for, physically or psychically, didn't matter. For so many months I pretended not to be grieving. I pretended not to grieve at all, not for Daddy or Garland or Hawk. Through the years I've paid a high price for this avoidance. My will seems broken and my mind is not as strong as it used to be. I don't feel like the “force of nature” I've been accused of .

    As Mark dies this slow, painful, wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy kind of death, I felt this part of me dying too. I can wrangle with the anger and disappointment all day. We can discuss, my therapist and I, how I was abused by him as a child, as a sister, as a human being. But the bottom line is that Mark, much like Daddy, Hawk and Garland, have not lived to see a day when Melanie can be all that they wished for me to be. They will not meet my lifemate, my children, if any of those are to ever be. I tried to make him Uncle Mark to David and Christopher, but that just didn't take. You can't force family on people. You can't make people love you. And if they do love you, you can't make them do right by you.

    So, now, for all intents and purposes, its just Mom and I. This will separate what's left of my relationship with my mom.  She will bottle her grief and act out like a teenager. I for one do not have that kind of energy. I only have this sense, this profound, unwaking nightmare, of feeling absolutely and completely alone.  For now, this loneliness stings and is the only thing I can think about. My empty bed is my only safe haven. As I hide from the world and feel this hollow, hollow emptiness, I am constantly reminded of the vacant space next to me. Somewhere along the line, someone showed me what it was to have a companion, to have constant support and kinship. But I am left with secrets and memories of those who would shape me forever. For better or for worse.