The Phone Call that Did Not Come

PERSPECTIVE

I only have one voicemail -

one from four years ago

this birthday comes

and goes

with no

Happy Birthday Mama!

I push the green triangle

PLAY

from that old message,

over and over and over

… give me a call… just if you get

the chance. I’d love to hear your voice.

                                                                                              Oh, sweet thing.

                                                                                         What I wouldn’t give

                                                                                            to hear your voice

                                                                                               one more time.

Why don’t I have

every voicemail you

ever left me?!

                                                                                     Because I always picked up.

I need to remember this.

This fact that changes everything.

Not that you are gone or that I miss you,

but the guilt, the agony, the lie

                                                                 that I didn’t care enough to save your messages.

When you called,

I always picked up.

                                                             PERSPECTIVE

What a gift

this knowledge.

To live in the present

enjoying the NOW

no awareness of sorrow to come

Like your very last phone call

Hey Mama!

Hey Adam!

What’s up?

Nothing much. How about you?

All good.

And from your perspective, you were,

All good.

plans made

boxes mailed

goodbye letters sent

only phone calls left to make

parents, siblings, partner

one by one by one

What were those last

“goodbye - talk soon”s

like for you?

the lies you told

so we would not realize

this was the last time we would hear your voice

                                                                                               your finger pressing END

                                                                                       on every relationship you held dear

I am not able to go there

without tipping over into

the horror of it

a place I told myself I would never go

yet, you called it peace

the releasing of one thing

the beginning of another

In the end, it’s ultimately about

					                      PERSPECTIVE,

like only having one of your voicemails

because,

                                                                                       I always picked up.

========================================================

It is embarrassing to keep writing about the same thing. Adam. I miss Adam. I wish Adam were here. I wish Adam hadn’t chosen to die. Yada. Yada. Yada. Then I have to process the WHY? of embarrassment. Because I should have it figured out by now. He’s gone. It’s done. Move on. Write about flowers and birds or even politics for the love of God.

I keep coming back to this idea of Perspective. Life is lived in our heads. People are joyful despite the most dire of circumstances and vice versa. I have so much to celebrate yet still wake up with a weight on my chest that makes it hard to breathe. When I talk to Adam, it is often with anger and resentment. “How could you do this to me? To us?” I long for the day when I reach out, touch his picture, and say, “Love you, buddy. Thank you for the gift of your life.” That feels a long, long way away.

Perspective requires Patience I suppose (:

PS It was Jane who actually said, “I always picked up.” I snatched that phrase for the power it held to explain so much of what we wrestle with.