The Life I knew left a note on the dining room table…

“ You are in good hands. I’ll be back. Take care of yourself.

We’ll both know when that old witch is done with you.

That’s when I’ll come home.

Love, 

“Life as You Have Known It“

Does Life, as a cantankerous neighbor, ever come to borrow sugar?

Or is “momentary upheaval” the way it saunters over to loan you a cup of flour and yeast for the rising, a good neighbor indeed and no longer in your home?

Yet, without sugar there is no bread for life.

In the echo of a rifle blast at 10 PM on a Sunday in May, Grief came a’ knocking and is not a neighbor. No sugar to lend.

Grief is the new tenant who, once in the door, refuses to cooperate and cannot be evicted. No one forsakes Grief.  She is patient and remembers EVERYTHING – her raging passion must be endured until she has paralyzed every sinew and woven every tear.

Here is what Life whispered as Life moved next door that night:

                     You cannot evict transformation from the DNA in Grief’s selfish fangs.

So, I sit at that same table, waiting with fine cakes and a few drops of brandy, to negotiate with this free-loader. It’s a bribe in hopes Grief will be kind enough to tell me what her plans are, rather than ambushing me at every turn.

So far?  it’s just me and my libations, and the second hand passing the first, as grief rumbles around getting settled – the knot in my soul pulled tighter by a vast echo from the gaping unknown…

She WILL have her way with me yet.

MEM 8/2015

RIP Sandra Lorraine Sedillos May 17, 2015