I can’t recall the circumstances that led to it, but we all left the hospital at different times that early morning. We had sat with her body and stared at it in absolute silence for what felt like hours, though I was later told was only mere minutes. I remember holding her frozen hand and watching her turn a shade of opaque-like white that made her look like a wax figure, almost. I didn’t cry; instead, I just continued to stare. I remember thinking at one point that I wasn’t capable of blinking. The initial wave of relief that I had felt when she finally passed away was short-lived; she was no longer in pain, but she was no longer alive. My head and my heart didn’t know how to combine these two facts, despite knowing they had to go hand-in-hand in order to both be true.
I made my way down the hospital stairwell. The stairs felt more appropriate, oddly. Every step downward produced a hollow echo, and I recall thinking that my steady rhythm down each flight somehow made the echoes overlap and blend with one another in perfect unison. The emptiness of the vertical tunnel made me feel like I was in a sensory deprivation chamber, of sorts, and I was hyper-aware of so many things I had never before considered. When I pushed open the heavy door at the base, I was greeted by the most outstanding winds that I’d experienced in years. Being fall in Wisconsin, the winds carried thousands of dead leaves spiraling in all directions, and I remember being overcome with the smell of autumn foliage. At only 5am, my eyesight was limited from the darkness beyond the single light above the doorway. I closed my eyes and allowed my body to sway with the circling winds around me. I could hear the leaves crunching as they engulfed my body, but I strangely felt comforted by it; I was reminded of the scene from Pocahontas when the leaves whirled around her and flew off to provide her direction. I needed some direction in that moment, and it felt like a consoling hug from nature. I didn’t want to move. The idea of putting more distance between myself and the building that housed her lifeless body brought with it a sense of guilt that I’ll never fully comprehend. I didn’t want her to “know” that I was leaving her, even though she was, in reality, already gone. The winds continued to swirl around me, and a memory instantaneously entered my subconscious. Years earlier, my archaeologist grandmother – who spent her entire life devoted to learning about Native American culture – was telling me about how many Native American tribes believed that the souls of those they lost were carried away with the great winds. I couldn’t remember the context of our conversation, but I remember vividly the look of peace on her face as she told me about the spiritual ideology. In that moment, my perspective shifted; I felt the winds and I felt my mother. She was no longer inside the hospital; she was outside, where she liked it most, and she was encircling me and providing direction. I stepped into the darkness. I hadn’t started my car in the two weeks since I arrived at the hospital, and I quickly noticed the gas light was on. It was strange, but I felt relieved by the little light. The light made it possible to know where I needed to drive first. I had already begun to worry about where I was going to go once I started the car, and everywhere felt wrong. Home would feel empty, without her. The trails were still dark and I felt afraid at the thought of walking them alone in my current state of delirium. The town was still asleep, and I didn’t want to see anyone, anyway. The gas light gave me a clear first step in the seemingly impossible mission ahead of moving forward. I pulled into the gas station and began to fill my tank. I was thirsty, I realized, and I tried to remember the last time I had had even a sip of water. Self-care over the past two weeks was purely survival. Survival physically and survival emotionally. As the only patron at the station, I went inside and grabbed the first bottle of water I saw. When I approached the counter, the Middle Eastern man behind the counter smiled at me and asked if the water was all that I needed. I recall pausing in this moment, unable to answer him. I only looked at him with my mouth partially open. I wanted to matter-of-factly tell him, “My mom just died,” but no words came out. I couldn’t understand how other people in the world were so easily going about their normal lives when my entire world had just changed as I’d known it. It didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel right. How was time still moving? My mom was dead, and the earth simply kept on spinning.
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