No one sees me jolt. Window of the care facility a man or is it a woman, white wispy hair. Four balloons float nearby. Dad spent some time within the haze of goodbye here, an island of caring among the corporatization of death.

 

Laurel reads a story about her sister’s demons, broke down…got stuck on her sister’s Jaguar that she now drives, a sad exoskeleton. An Irish guy reads about his fallen wife, talking to his kids.

 

Near the balloons lies a squirrel stiffly looking up in both a creepy and funny way. Nature sometimes bops me over the head.

 

Colleen’s kid brother died recently. The first time I met him I was a wandering hippy with torn jeans and a ponytail. I knew how my appearance would play out to a Spokane teen. So I challenged him to a game of basketball in the driveway. I knew I would win.

 

He had engineer precision and a big heart, surrounded by his wife and three daughters. Never wandered or rambled. His ashes on the Lake Coeur d’Alene.

 

I walked the same walk the day that Dad died, gray skies turned to magnificent magenta at the top of the hill. My parents’ birth date in my appointment book used to be open ended. Now their death dates are like the other bookmark. It won’t be too long before no one remembers them or us. 

 

I ponder the words died and passed. How harsh are the consonants of the former and how soft the sound of the later. We all end up like the squirrel. Why not live while we are here?