I'm looking out the window, watching the kids on the playground leave with their mother, the swings gently rocking in the breeze, empty, the playset surrounded by mist with only a memory of days so sweet you could almost taste watermelon in your mouth. And I'm remembering sitting on the swings with my brother and cousin on either side as we waited for a paternal figure to come and push the swings higher and higher, a perfect underdog that could only be attained on those days. I'm remembering sitting on top of the jungle gym, hiding from my brother, hearing my mother calling me back to my cousin's house because my aunt has made lunch and I should be there to enjoy it and I'm wishing I had payed more attention to the taste of the food.


Because as I'm watching and waiting and remembering and wishing I'm also realizing that those days are over, my childhood is over. Gone over the crest of the hill, shining and fading at the same time and it must have been the most beautiful and heartbreaking sight but I didn't see it. Now carefree and easy days that used to be are slipping through my fingers in an instant like sand washing away in the tide.


My aunt is dying of cancer. We've known for a bit now, but it didn't seem real, it couldn't be real, not until I actually saw her lying there, her voice weak, her expression clearly stating that she doesn't want visitors, that she wishes we would just stay away, and all the while I'm thinking, why? Wouldn't it be so much better to let us show you how much you are loved? 


Death is a funny thing. It makes you speak too harshly and hurt too deeply and want too much and change. She has never been this way before, pushing away family and memories and love like they are what is causing the disease, like she can just purge her life of us and everything will be better. In the back of her mind she's scared, she's terrified. Terrified to leave her son about to graduate college, her daughter about to graduate high school, her husband who will be left with nothing but an empty house when she is gone.  Terrified of what she knows her death with do to those who really care for her.


This house can no longer hold those moments. So I'm watching the swings rock gently, dew dripping off of the chains, trying to memorize this moment because it might be the kind of moments we have from now on. That notion scares me to death. I want the simple happiness of the past, I crave it.


I haven't sat on those swings in a long time. Maybe someday I will, but it won't be the same. We all have to grow up sometime. And yet, I have hope that death doesn't have to change everything, that we move on and learn to remake memories.  Someday, I may sit on those swings again. No, it won't be the same, because every moment is unique. But I am confident that I can move on, that those swings don't always have to be as cold and dreary amd empty as they are now.

I am watching. I see that this moment is an end.

But it is also a beginning.

*****

My aunt died of Cancer on July 24th, 2012. I visited her earlier that day. She was somewhere in the veil between here and there and no one could really get through to her. But while I was with her she said one word to me, just one: Proud. She was proud of me. That was her last word. The fact that she would say that to me means so much. It has given me hope for the future.

In my previous writing, I said I thought I could move on. Now I know I can, and her one word has inspired me to follow my dreams and make a difference. I can't thank her enough.

May she rest in peace.