Month: August 2019

The universe is in your bones, the stars in your soul; it’s never really the end.
-David Jones

Mark and I had always agreed that when we died we wanted to be cremated. What to do after that was never discussed because even though we frequently said, “You can’t get out of here alive,” it turns out we never actually believed it. In those conversations about the inevitable, I knew I always wanted to be the one that went first. Life without Mark seemed like it would be so boring (and it is), and I thought that if I went first he’d have his work to pour himself into whereas I’d struggle to fill my days with any sort of meaning.

After the funeral was over and Mark’s ashes came home with me, I had no idea of how, when, and where to spread them. Or should I spread them? Maybe they should stay in the house with me? As time went on it became more obvious that keeping them wasn’t a good idea. The downstairs bedroom became the catchall for everything from the funeral and his office, and on top of the bed sat the box with his ashes; a constant, daily reminder that dust was all that was left. I couldn’t look at them any more and so I put them in my closet where they stayed a constant, daily reminder but one that didn’t seem to jolt me so much.

Two years ago Mark and I went to Los Angeles to visit our youngest daughter who had moved there to pursue a dance career. On our bucket list was to cross another national park off and go to Yosemite. Like everything we did in our lives, we planned none of it ahead of time. The idea was that we would drive up there, see the park, get a room for the three of us for the night, go back to the park for a few more hours the next day and then drive back to Los Angeles. Before we had a chance to consider that there was an outbreak of wild fires in Yosemite that was making the news, and so we decided to postpone it until our next visit. Because of our disappointment of not being able to go there, I mentioned to the kids that maybe that was the place that we should spread Mark’s ashes. While I probably would have mulled that over for too long never committing to anything, one of those kids has been a school teacher for years and knows how to hit the accelerator and get people moving.

We decided that getting out of our environment during the week of Father’s Day and Mark’s birthday seemed like the best time to go. For weeks prior I had terrible anxiety about the whole idea. I questioned whether or not it was the right decision, if it was something that I wouldn’t be able to go through with, if not being able to see his remains in a box in the closet would tip the scale for me from barely coping to insanity. But plans were made, flights and an AirBnB were booked, and a time frame established to pick up the youngest Fisher. We landed in LA and headed north for a shaky family adventure.

As soon as we got one look at that stunning park I knew it was the right thing to do. Mark would have loved it, and though the absence of him broke me many times over, we all very much felt him right alongside of us. I hoped that meant he was giving his stamp of approval for this idea. We left his ashes along the biggest trees, and on the forest floor between two saplings. We left them in small creeks and roaring rivers, and I knew if he was there he would have disappeared to walk along the bank only to come back and say, “You won’t believe the size of the fish in here, Kath.” It was along one of those rivers that I bent down and scooped some of that cold, clear water in my hand and drank it, hoping it would baptize all of us with some peace. We cried at every place we left him and then would silently walk away, all lost in our thoughts that vacillated like the river between calm and roaring, and was it only the roaring that Mark heard that early Tuesday morning?

I didn’t get to go first like I wanted to, and his life didn’t end with the peace and love that he lived most of his days, but we finished the job that none of us wanted. We delivered Mark to his final destination to join the drumbeat of life that he was insatiably curious about, and every night we go to sleep under the same moon which will have to do for now.

The other day I was watching my daughter’s two kiddos and my granddaughter started talking about the vacation all of us took in June. I asked her if she liked that, liked that all of us took a trip together, and she said, “Yes, but next time we have to pick up Boompa and bring him with us.” I told her that would be wonderful but that I’m not sure where he is. She said that he is in the United States and we need to find him and bring him with us.

When my daughter came home from the visitation of a teacher friend’s beloved mother-in-law to pick up the kids, she said that as soon as she saw her friend’s husband she lost it and sighed at how little support she was to him. “That was honest,” I told her. “You know what it’s like to stand and greet people who mourn your loss but could never understand what it was like to be the child of your dad. They try but the void is too massive to begin to explain.” She said that she always thinks of Mark not being here which I think all of us have in common. He couldn’t have possibly died as the finality of that word is too much.

He simply is not here.

I cannot move his shoes, his ballcaps are on the railing post upstairs, his coats in the closet, his phone on the buffet, his keys by the front door, his bikes in the garage. He’s not here but he can’t be dead so I leave everything where it was in case he decides there isn’t right for him. There is a basket of unwritten thank you cards for supporting us after his death but should those finally get written and sent? What if he wants to be back here? Wouldn’t that be confusing? And if that were to happen should I reimburse everyone for all the food and flowers that flooded the house?

I open his closet and all his sport coats hang by color – something I did because I like to organize. The linen blazer that he wore to a retirement party we went to last summer and a wedding the summer before. The one that he would put on and I’d say, “Dang, Mark Fisher, you look goooood in that.” How can I possibly fold that up and put in a bag to donate? Would somebody at a thrift store know he wore that for me because I always told him he looked hot in it?

Should I leave the toothpaste he bought in the dollar aisle at the grocery store? The one that made me wonder if it passed any kind of inspection? Because if he came back I could fling open the hallway closet and say here’s your toothpaste. I saved it because I know how much you prided yourself on saving more money than I ever did at the grocery store. That I still buy peaches and let them go bad because every summer he rated them and if they were so juicy he had to eat them over the kitchen sink he’d say “buy more of this kind” and I do but can’t bring myself to eat a single one. That I buy the yogurt he liked and when he would finish spooning it out he’d run his finger along the inside to get every last bit. That if he came back I’d say, “Mark, even though I thought that was gross I do it now too. So I can get every last bit.”

That his summer bike clothes and his winter bike clothes are all where he left them and I don’t look at them because I especially liked when he wore the blue shorts and shirt. That when he’d come home sweaty, unfasten his helmet, and take off his glasses the bluey-green pools that were his eyes would pop against the blue shirt. That I sleep on his side of the bed now with my back to the other side so I don’t have to look at the emptiness.

I have often heard that the veil between here and there is razor thin. Is it the ones who haven’t lost it all that say that because to me it feels like a chasm far too wide to reach him? Since Mark died, the kids and I end most conversations with an “I love you”, something that was not a habit before. Now it comes out with ease because if this is the day you go there then by God you are going to go knowing you are loved.

The funny thing is that even now when we know that is possible because we are living it, we are audaciously hopeful enough to believe that it is inconceivable that those of us left to carry Mark’s story will not be here tomorrow. And maybe that’s a blinking flashlight from there saying I see you, I’ll always love you with my banged up heart and soul, and I’ve saved you a seat beside me when your work is done.