That blue velvet wingback was my
grandfather’s favorite chair. See
how the seat pillow sinks in the middle and rises along the edges? It’s as if he sits in it still,
although, when he died at 91 he couldn’t have weighed more than that same
number of pounds. I never sit in
that chair, but I do address it, the thin mist of my paternal ancestor
keeping me company. He hears it
all -- my joys and dreams, regrets and sorrows –- without judgment.
I often reminisce with Grandfather about, Joseph, drowned forty-two years ago in a flash
flood outside Big Bend National Park. The canoe
trip was an eighteenth birthday gift from our grandfather. Joseph’s broad shoulders and strong legs couldn't win over the
Rio Grande when it screamed into that Texas arroyo. While my twin fought for breath, I read War and Peace in
Grandfather’s library, sickly with pneumonia and pleurisy. There was a moment, however, when
the air left my lungs involuntarily and the library whirlpooled into
space. Then it was over and I lost
myself in Tolstoy’s grip.
I hear my daughter clattering about
in the kitchen making cucumber and sweet butter sandwiches. No crusts. She sets the kettle to boil. Gathers china cups and saucers. She’ll place a flower bud in my cup. Perhaps today it will be a
marigold. Yesterday a burgundy
nasturtium unfolded as she poured hot water over it. It’s a trick she learned as a child in India. Whenever I try, the flower buds collapse
and die. She says the secret can
be learned only by the innocent. I
believe her.
Iris is here to discuss my
death. She doesn’t agree my life
should end on my sixtieth birthday.
I’ll listen to her argument then do as I please. Next Tuesday I’ll assemble
the pills, crush them into a tumbler of orange juice and Cointreau and drink it
down. Cancer wins. It’s time to go.
She lowers
a tea tray onto the table next to Grandfather’s chair and places a marigold bud in my teacup.
Slowly covers it with hot
water.
The nascent flower tightens and
collapses.
