To Rosie on her Birthday: May my Living the Truth bring you Dignity.
Rose was a complex woman with a legacy I’m still unwinding.
She was a Virgo x7. An identical twin. She could be cruel, harsh and unrelenting. Manic and volatile. Brash and boisterous. Hilariously entertaining and the kind of crude only Italians from the East Coast can swallow.
(How do you say these things, without bringing shame? I’m still learning).
She was scrappy and care-taking in the only way she knew how to be— stealing canned goods from the soup kitchen where she volunteered and sneaking them into my bags as I left. I stopped saying no. I could see how much it meant to her to have something, anything to give.
Continually I ask myself how to tell the Truth of it all with dignity. But the Truth is, she was a woman who held nothing back. A scary kind of shamelessness, she had.
She was the first person to take me to a porn shop... her best friend worked there so we stopped by for a visit. I was eight.
Hers were the first 60+ year old breasts I saw when she flashed us on Easter Sunday, defending their perkiness indignantly.
The Christmas before she died she gave me two Tiffany silver bracelets from her first husband, my grandfather, who I luckily never met. Ten minutes later, she snatched them back and put them on.
She struggled to let go, even in death.
We protected her from so much, whispering truths behind her back she couldn’t handle. If we were honest, and these days I really am trying, we were only protecting ourselves. In my lifetime she was mostly stable, but you’d just never know when an ambulance passing by would set off an earlier timeline, an explosion of tears. I think it scared those old enough to remember the year she got so nervous her hair and sanity left her altogether.
I could see how her distance and disconnect broke my mother’s heart. She’d never be the loving grandma you bake cookies with and snuggle on the couch. She just wasn’t that kind of woman. Her defenses were harsh and cold— they needed to be. After she died, I found out she tried to kill someone once.
Near the end, there were more moments of softening… Not many, but enough to get a glimpse of who she was underneath. I loved watching her fall in love with the first man who was ever good to her at 80 years old. It’s never too late to receive healthy love.
Continually, I’m pulling on the threads Rose tried to tuck away.
Continually, I’m uprooting the secrets everyone else forgot.
Continually, I’m wondering who she really was— this gorgeous, wounded woman whose infectious energy would draw you close, then push you far, far away.
How do I know her now?
There must be a place inside me, inextricably connected to her. Connected to her icy rage, and all the generous gemstones underneath.
Is there a way Dignity continues lives on? In her? In our lineage? In me?
Sitting with her in the final days, I understood.
At her bedside, I knew the Dignity was in being able to tell the Truth. In being able to hold it.
I can. I Am.
Written October, 2022 - in the days after her death—
Before I entered, they told me not to mention it. I sat beside her A bony, paper hand in mine. I disregard them and whisper —Death, As natural as life Is here now. Silently encroaching on this sacred, holy Truth I feel her searing eyes land on me There is a target, passed down for generations on my back. I know why. —Sure, take a seat I’m here praying here In silence. And I did, until I couldn’t a moment longer. Like a deflated balloon A dejected child She left me alone with her Mother. Interrupted. Again. —Why are you ignoring Your mother? She needs you. I didn’t come here for them And the bottomless pit of Distortions. I didn’t come here to Dodge deniers of death. I came here to Tell her the Truth: —Death. Is. Now. And I will be here. No more lying will get us through. The most natural thing Is to surrender to Truth. Because throughout all these years And even now, No one could. No one would. Her nose is different, Like an apple surely on its way to the compost. I’m not supposed to Notice things like this. Thankfully I, too, Can disregard what I’m told. Cradling her head, I speak to her honestly. For a moment she becomes an Infant in the arms of her Mother. Did anyone, in all her years Hold her this way? Mothering My mothers mother As my abuser and all His defenders sip wine In the next room. Death all around, Even still in this Sacred, Holy moment They ask me to perform deceit To take the edge off. I remain sober. You can’t outrun the Truth. I’m not trying.Â
To the woman who told me I don’t need no man or drama, just get a vibrator, I love you. I miss you. I see you. I pray you can rest now.
Thank you for life.
