August 19: Fourth Anniversary, Sally, Heart Breaks a Little

Today is the fourth anniversary of my sister Sally's death.

Hard to believe that it was only four years ago.  So much has changed since she's been gone.  Still miss her daily.  Her no-nonsense approach.  How, when she thought I was being stupid, she would look at me over her reading glasses, her eyes saying it all:  "Bullshit."

I miss her generosity of spirit.  She dug my family out of quite a few holes when we needed it the most.  Her love came with no strings.  She gave and never expected anything in return.  Maybe that's why everyone loved her so much.

So, for today, I present a poem I wrote earlier this summer for her.

I miss you, Sal.  I love you.  I wish you were here.  I know you're still looking out for me and my family, the way you always did.

Saint Marty heart always breaks a little on this day.

Vigil Strange I Kept in Ann Arbor One Morning

by:  Martin Achatz

I sat by the bed railings, listened to you breathe.

Not the watery gasps of two weeks later, but breaths doing

the work they were meant to do, carrying oxygen to organs,

limbs, pink fingernails, fissured lips, to your damaged

and damaging brain where your voice nestled between

tumors, walled up against the apocalypse of your body.

I sat.  Held your hand.  Made small talk about the humid air

of Ann Arbor, school and work, because I couldn’t bring myself

to make big talk about goodbyes or letting go.  No, I talked to you

the way I talked when we used to eat lunch together, the smells

of vinaigrette and flax seed and bananas around us.  Everyday talk,

because I wasn’t ready for last day talk.

I told you about the film classes I would teach in the fall, listed

the movies we would watch.  Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights,

Singin’ in the Rain, Citizen Kane.  I sang a song to you,

the one Gene Kelly sings to Debbie Reynolds.  You’re my lucky

star.  I saw you from afar.  I got the words wrong.

I vigiled there for an hour, while your body went about the business

of closing up shop.  Never once did I say “I love you” or “I’m sorry for”

or “Don’t go.”  Instead, I talked about Charles Foster Kane and his sled.

Rosebud burning in the furnace at the end, crackling, peeling, ashing.

And, in those last minutes before the official acts of hospice and dying

took over, I asked you one question--“Do you want some ice?”--and you grunted

at me.  I placed a cube on your chapped tongue and watched it melt

down your chin.