April 12, 2006

of kissing dead bodies
Julie

Sorry but I am filled with grief.

Two deaths in three days. I lost two dear loved ones. Yesterday morning, I get a phonecall of doom. A nurse from where my grand-mother was living tells me that my grandma is gone. My mother and I went to the center to identify the body. My mother trembles, I have lava in my belly. I am angry with myself, angry because I did not visit her often, except on hollidays. She has been mentally ill for years now, she did not want to eat or take her medication, sometimes she did not remember who we were...plus she looked like a living mummy, she was only skin and bones...knowing that I am hypersensitive, my family discouraged me to go. Bud I made efforts and came once in a while, it was pretty hard to see her like this. I wanted to remember her the way she was before her illness, I wanted to remember the laughing, dancing and shopping grandma, not the skinny suffering sick person. Last weekend my parents went to see her, she was happy, lucid and she was talking. I was not there. I told myself "I will visit her soon!". Too late, she is dead. So yesterday morning when mother and I came to identify the body, I talked to my grand-mother even if I knew that she could not hear me. I told her that I was sorry and that she was a good granny. I kissed her cold stiff forehead. Even in death her skin was like velvet. At least she died in her sleep so I know that she did not suffer. A few days earlier, I had to kill my budgie. She had been very ill for a month. She could not fly, could not eat, could not sing and would not play. Yet she lived, spinning round and round in the bottom of her cage, vomitting and falling, knocking her head. She got worse everyday. So I've ended her days without pain. I had that bird three years and I would play with her everyday. Before her illness she played, she always loved it when I kissed her on her belly, she would always rub her beak on my nose making adorable sounds, she was able to say my name, she would fly in my house and perch on my finger when I was pointing in her direction. After ending her days, I kissed her little dead body and wrapped her in a silk handkerchief and disposed of her body. I loved that little bird like a person. I know it is silly but I am a lonely person that get attached deeply to people and beasts. I lost two loved ones in three days, I am a mess.