One Artist’s Abstract Interpretation on Coping with Loss Under Night Fall

The time we were in was time that was meant for quiet, mutual understanding, eyes met with communal sadness. A window is only a small peek into the larger, sometimes smaller, space inside, I thought, while standing huddled amongst others during this loving time. The low misty clouds cover the twill bird sounds rebounding off the stillness, a soaring silence so knowing of the words spoken even the lake filled, tree studded canyon stopped to hear. I stood outside the wall of sliding glass and understood the differences in the artistic canvas-like morning I was witnessing. How timing is everything at moments like this. I quickly tried to remember a day like this not just because of the beauty, but because the misty clouds resembled sprinkled salt on top of cement once Never started blowing an air-horn over the serene morning that we laid his mother to rest.

It was part of the ceremony, the air-horn. I wanted to laugh as the short sequences of tumultuous sound rang over our senses until the Priest’s hand fell to his side and he gave Never a side look of disgust. But it was part of the ceremony, “what she would’ve wanted,” everyone said. My eyes were riveted on the ground though my shoulders stammered out laughter’s shake as my face was stone straight refusing to give in to the shuttering tickle while the sequences of blaring noise got longer and louder.

One of the eulogies from her close friend Thomas, who she knew much better than thought, went, “It’s just the way she was. The fact is, there was nothing you could do about it, it’s just the way she was. I could never figure out if she was joking or not and so I spent a large amount of the time I knew her being confused about whether she was joking or not. In fact, the first time we had sex she tickled me until I laughed so hard I knew that it was not foreplay, she really wanted me to say, ‘uncle’ while I laughed under her hysterically, stark naked. I know she loved me, I know she did. I know she wanted me and actually went looking for me, because she had seen me and liked what she saw, pursued me like none other and so I know she was attracted to me, loved me and I know I loved her.”

I grabbed my boyfriend by the hip and pushed and pulled his belt-loop through the crowd until we were at the car and done with the funeral of my closest friend Olivia Reedman who obviously died of “having-too-good-of-a-life.”

“She would have wanted a quiet funeral with lots of tears and sadness, each of us saying sad, sentimental things about her,” I said and I meant it no matter how strange it sounded.
“Well, it’s not what she got. She got liquor, Mexican food and roasted not eulogized,” Michael said with an outright laugh putting his hand over his mouth looking down to avoid my eye’s disapproval.
“Michael you’ve had too much to drink, think about it, Olivia’s funeral and you got drunk.” Michael’s eyebrows went up as he reached for his zipper in the, I’m-going-to-pee-on-the-tree-before-we-get-into-the-car, motion and I turned away in disgust.

He was right. It was a joke. A gag funeral and she would have loved it. But I was sad she was gone and didn’t think everyone else would think her leaving was a time to get drunk, and have an open session of comedic pot shots. It was beautiful, she was beautiful, but, still I worried. I worried about her ten year old son, Never, how he would handle the trauma, I just worried about it all.

For the second time on that night, I sat thinking about calling Olivia, the first time I actually got up to get the telephone. I thought about what she would say, what she’d be doing. It was now a month since she died in a car accident on her way to yoga. She was always a fast driver and, was like her, she got off the freeway going too fast and her Camaro sideswiped the onramp’s brick retainer wall, afterward she spun out of control. Part of her memorial was at the crash site as when the car hit the retaining wall her quart-sized cans of paint in the back seat splattered all over the insignificant wall. The paint left a beautiful splashing of primary colors, yellow and blues mostly, that dripped and overlapped in such a way as to be considered her best work by many people who knew her style. I looked at it like it was a postcard sent to Never because a small splash of purple centered so well it looked like a batch of balloons with the middle splash winking, the others smiling. It was sad that her best painting was one she would never see and that the wall was right in front of the yoga ashram.

Then, there was Never. He had been given to his Grandparents, per her wishes, and Never was handling the changes rather poorly. He understood what was going on, however, he was depressed and having to make changes he didn’t want to. I visited often, but the last time I was there I left early as Never was obnoxious with his running around, screaming and playing an imaginary game in which he called me and his grandparents, “land-clingers” and “space-grubbers.” That was when I knew he was dealing with the truth; he didn’t need “the talk” as his grandparents had asked me over to do. I said, “I think he understands quite well about his mother’s passing.”

Truthfully, I had no confidence in my knowledge about death or experience enough to lend any real assistance to Never. Everyone has their own inner-instinct about where the soul goes. Everyone feels that gentle nudge under the chin, when born, which tells you that this earthly human experience cannot last forever. I hoped Never could depend on that and chose not to have to speak to him about it. I continued my long sit under a beautiful night and cried for her absence and our long existence of days without Olivia, without her sweet being.

Part II Tomorrow