m

OLDER

READS

RINGS

D-LAND

GUESTBOOK

I was sick last Sunday. I had a cold. It was a beautiful day out, but I had opted to stay inside and gently attempt some housework. At about 5:30, my phone rang and my naked and ready to hop in the shower daughter brought it to me. I had heard her say 'hi Grandad,' so I knew it was my Dad. She brought me the phone and I answered with a congested "Hi Dad."

"Hi," he said. "How are you?"

"Freakin' great," I chuckled.

"You're about to get worse," he returned. It's amazing how quickly the mind works. My first thought was that he was being facetious and was going to tell me that the weather was going to be shitty by Wednesday. Or that he hadn't won the lottery and couldn't quit his job. I grinned and asked "Why's that?"

The pause after my question was infinite and silent and I knew something was wrong. I braced myself to hear that my Grandfather had died.

"Ginger just died."

My step-Mother. Dad's voice was flat, almost matter of fact. Again, the mind works so quickly. I did a mental check: Was it April Fool's Day? No, it was March 28th. Maybe....maybe Dad was drunk and really one of the dogs had died and he was so drunk he was saying 'Ginger.' "What?" I asked.

"Ginger just died." My mind worked frantically to make some sense out of what he had just said. Three words--and he even repeated them--but they were too much. The combination of those three particular words held no discernable meaning to me.

"I'm so sorry," he said. His throat tightened and he choked back tears. "I don't know what--SHIT, hold on, Meggie."

As he answered his call waiting, my mind was still circling the three words and I finally gleaned some sense from them: My Dad was now a Widower. Everything else that the phrase meant was still unreachable to me. Bits of reality kept flying at me, but they bounced off the forcefield of my shock before any of them could sink in.

"Meggie?" He came back. There! A voice! A familiar voice. I could cling to that even while everything else fell away. "Let me call you back. That's Tami. I'll call you right back." And he was gone.

My brain began to swim and everything I knew was wrong then. And the three words were supposed to mean more to me than they did, but I was having a hell of a time trying to get them to. But then I gleaned another small piece of sense: There would be services and I would need to be there. My mind no longer understood how to fold the three shirts in my lap, but somehow I understood 'funeral' right then and I called Justin. Tears sprang to my eyes when I heard his voice. "Ginger's dead!" I told him.

My mind begins to get fuzzy at that point and the next couple of days are a blur. My Dad called back and said that Ginger had been in bed with flu-like symptoms all day. When he went in to check her around 4, she appeared to be sleeping but had been gone long enough that resuscitative efforts by my Dad and the Paramedics failed.

design by fergie

Bits of fire in the sky push me east back home. I used to live in flames but it's hard on the wings. Choke me. Smoke me. Scare me back. You try but you just can't. I peel the layers in my spare time, and you're easy to see through. I can fly, I've discovered on my own. I may be the lesser butterfly but my wings are just as strong. Who are you to tell me to find a place to land? I may be the lesser butterfly but baby watch me glide.