in 11 days it is my birthday – one of those milestone big deal balloons and funny hats ones.

this knowledge has made me thoughtful and it has had me thinking a lot about the past. when i was much younger than i am now and probably a little too young, i sat with a woman and we watched her mother die together.

i remember this afternoon with the vivid painful clarity of most memories kept alive by trauma. i think of this afternoon often and like trails worn by footfalls in the forest, my brain has walked this memory many times before

her mother was sick, old, and chronos or god or someone else – had decided her time was come. she was a small bundle of bony limbs covered in pastel blankets and a home made quilt.
i have noticed that we tend to leave this world similarly to how we came into it.

the daughter was unsure of what to do or how to do it and i gave her no instruction for i had none to give. in plastic chairs we sat shoulder to shoulder and she talked about her mother’s cooking and her garden. she told me that her mother made really good cookies and that she loved her mother deeply. this was not something she needed to tell me as it was obvious from the way her hands worried at the tattered quilt, the way her fingers lingered on the cooling skin of her parent.

we talked about poetry and cats.
she asked my age.
we talked as the breathing of her mother slowed.

in that moment, i realized how powerless i was.
there was nothing left to fix, no hail marys to say
we could only watch as the pale rider entered
he lingered and air became heavy and then the moment came.
i did not need to speak, the daughter turned to me with eyes full of tears and she asked in a desperate voice “is it now?” and i said yes because it was.

she held my hand and her mothers hand and the three of us became two
there is a heaviness in the room
some people say the soul emerges – energy returning to source
i say we should open the window
an old superstition to let the pale rider and his new companion exit.
she asks me to open the window and i do
like a sentry to a castle, i let these wanderers pass
birds in the trees outside watch us as we watch them

there is no rush and no hurry
it is done
there are phone calls to make
but they are not urgent

now, it is the after
uncomfortable and liminal
the daughter becomes matriarch
unsteady and wounded she holds me as she cries and cries
i do not comfort her
words would have been cheap and false
i let her wail until her wailing becomes howling until it becomes wailing again until it becomes sobs and then finally, sniffles.

i see her, many years later in a grocery store
and she approaches me awkwardly and thanks me simply for being there
she tells me i was her angel and i let her
but i disagree. i am no angel.
i was just there.
i was a sentry and a witness
and maybe that meant more
i granted no miracles and performed no feats
there was no flaming swords and no glory
we just were for a while as three
and then two
and now, just the one
the matriarch no longer afraid
she touches my cream coloured sweater with the antler buttons and she looks into my eyes with our hands full of in season blackberries, on sale for $2.99
the risen queen

it was just a regular afternoon in my twenties when we watched her mother die together
almost 20 years have passed
i remember it like it was yesterday