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Did the death of our parents leave
us unrelated?
(A poem to Ronnie)
PaulaARG Kernachan
No MP3 available at this time.
Your father died less than 2 years ago this August.
He was my Uncle.
My Aunt died the April after, and she was married to MY Uncle.
He was the brother of my grandmother.
My Grandmother died last July… leaving my mother and her sister.
Now my father has died last weekend… he was your Uncle.
He was all of your uncles.
My brother flew in from Germany to see if he was still related.
The air force thought he was. I did not know him.
He said he didn’t know I had another brother and sister.
Still there I stood by the side of the young woman my father had raised
as he reached for her memories… and she told him who I was. Dad’s
watch had blackened his arm in bruises and pain yet he cried if we
tried to take it away… to ease him. It was a gift from my brother
that my blood
had not known.
I was not at my uncle’s funeral; you were not at your uncle’s
funeral. If your mother my aunt dies, will we still be
related? If my bloods wife dies will he again be my brother or
will he still belong to his children’s grandparents? My confusion
is clear… I’m confused. Blood is thin and when it
stops…. There is no water left to quench it’s
thirst. With no platelets to bond something that is not close
enough
to clot together. IF we lose those that clot us…. Are we no
longer one blood?
Blood falls in droplets to the floor not mucus. Mucus stays even
when the family disappears… yet blood dries then browns, and flakes to
the
wind. Blood gets thinner, the mucus gets thicker… it is wiped, it
is suctioned, yet it. ……. It silences all. Just months, weeks,
even
days, earlier my dad loved me, hours before the darkness in my heart
his
blood called my name. My heart screams for my daddy, and I want
to
hit someone…. But, there is no one there but mucilated* darkness.
*Mucilated - coined to mean choking,
strangulation, as one might concur if they have with emphysema.
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