My only daughter died of colon cancer at the age of 30...about 11,000 days after she was born. She had been married only 18 months prior. Her home was an adorable nest; an eclectic attic filled with family antiques, folk art and wedding gifts. She was a writer, a gourmet cook and best friend to all who had the pleasure of knowing her.

She cared for me when I could not cope. She was my child, my sister, my mother and my friend. She was to be my care-giver, storyteller and the mother of my un-born grandchildren. She never called mother. She called me Annie. 

During her last days, she seemed angry with me. I have since learned that it is often easier to leave angry. It prepares you for seperation. Our relationship was open and honest. She did not want to leave. She was not ready. It was all wrong. The order of things was wrong. Parents do not bury their children.

On the day we buried her we held a memorial service for her father who died only months before her cancer diagnosis. The funeral procession stopped at his grave before her internment in another part of the cemetery. I do not know how I survived that day. I was numb with grief.  I do remember that she wanted two dozen bouquets of peach colored roses at the service.

I promised her I would continue her work and I would not become stuck in a mire of self-pity. I promised her that I would okay. She couldn't stand to see my cry. "Stop it," she would say. I promised her that I would. 

A DAY AT THE BEACH   

A SHORT STORY 

"It happens every night. Aqua waves, black in the moonlight, rush to clean the coral sand before sunrise. There is an order to this. All that belonged to yesterday is erased."  

Flamenco Beach: Culebra PR

The first footsteps of the day, the first words drawn on the sand…today, will be mine. The surf is a sparse fringe of lacy froth. It offers enticements of opalescent shell and bits of colored glass. I am tempted to garner another rich harvest for my trove. But I begin my walk and it will be hours before I return.

Today I walk with my daughter. Not by my side, but in my heart. I carry her, now, as I did before she was born.

The crescent road leads me to a pristine jetty where tiny swimmers dart amongst coral lips and hollows. It is bounded by the gentle curve of the shore. Turquoise pools have become baths. This is where I will spend the day and write in my journal.

I hang my hammock between two bent palms. Other travelers will come by but they will not encroach. I have made the first claim. It is the way here.

I came to write. I know that if I can put words to paper I might be able to say them out loud. First write…then speak. Then release.  How does one do that? “Parents do not bury children. Parents do not bury children.” My mantra.

I begin but I cannot write about her. I am not ready to go back to the happy times. I am stuck there, by her bed, on the last day.

But I promised. So I begin again. It is not as I planned.

 “I can’t write about you”….

 Pen down. Pen back. I continue...

“Because if I did I would cry forever and my tears would inundate the earth. Humanity would drown in the tsunami of my anguish.”

“What a waste of time, you were always one for drama ” I hear her say.

I remember that night in the hospital when I was wrapping myself in a hospital gown. I was going to sleep in the bed next to hers, but I had no pajamas. The gown was so huge that I taped the waist to keep it from opening. 

“You always need to look your best", she mumbled with disdain.

She was on morphine for the pain.

This isn’t going to work. I can’t find my own voice. She butts in every time I try to write. I pick up the journal and walk to the jetty where I dangle my feet in the bath. It is so peaceful here. The water is perfectly still. I pick up my pen and begin again.

“I can’t write about you, because…because if I did… I would scream so loud that the sky would shatter and the stars would hide. The world would be dusty and desolate; stripped of life by the storm of my fury.”

She was a journalist at the Hartford Courant. Her work was excellent. Precise. Award winning.

“I liked the dusty and desolate thing…shattering sky? Stars hiding? Not so sure about that. Way over the top, don't you think?" 

“ May I finish now?” I ask her.  She doesn’t answer, no wise remarks. So, I continue:

“You were the flower of my life the extension of my desire. I gave you first breath, I stole your last. I waited there by your bed and breathed it in. You belonged to me and I couldn’t have you. You were of me. And I couldn’t keep you. I wanted to put you back inside. I would have carried you undetected to a perfect place. Away from pain. Away from death. It is a form of madness. Don’t you know that? Me, watching you die…unable to do anything.”

 Quiet. I wait. No response. 

I remember the last words I heard her say before she slipped into a coma. Not I love you but:  “Mom is so weird."

She was speaking to my son;  angry with me for taking the gold locket that I had given her. I needed it. Her father bought it for me years before and pictures of my young family were inside. We were complete then. We had hope and life was good. I needed the locket to remember. To remember when we were whole. So I took it from her dresser and put in on. 

“You had no right…I’d didn’t give you permission” she hissed at me.

“I am so sorry” I replied. “I should have asked.”

 I am stopped now. Drained. There was no storm. No rush of wind, no dust. The sea is calm. The sun has not hidden behind clouds, the sky has not shattered. The world is intact. I am silent. No screams.

I remember when she died I went to another beach. I wondered about clouds then. I used ask myself if there was an after life, would her soul look like a cloud? What do souls look like? I was mad. I knew that. Maybe, I thought…maybe, I could see her soul ascending. I have a picture of those clouds…that day. No souls.

Today I focus on the horizon. I look out beyond the crystal shallows, beyond the green and purple, beyond the azure to the where the earth ends and the sky begins. I watch large ships ride the purple line that separates sea from firmament. It is too far to detect any motion…they just appear and then disappear. How far away? I have no idea. I wonder about what their cargo and where they are headed. I remember the poem that was on the wall in the cancer unit by Bishop Brent.

“A ship sails and I stand watching till she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says She is gone….And just at that moment, when someone at my side says she is gone, there are others who are watching her coming over their horizon and other voices take up a glad shout - There she comes!”

 I hate that poem! I don’t want her to be somewhere else. I WANT HER HERE!!!  “Damn you…” I curse at a patient God. “Why did you take this precious girl?” I am dead too. A walking dead person.

 I am exhausted and as I turn to go back to the hammock. And then…it happened as if often does in this place. A small rogue wave hits me in the back of my knees, knocks me off balance and in an instant my journal goes out to sea and returns on the next wave.

As I rush to retrieve it I see her in the surf reaching for the soggy book.  She turns to stare at me with her hazel eyes snapping from beneath a fringe of black bangs. The hair is the same; a chignon, held in place by a tortoise shell barrette. She lifts her long skirt, which is now a tangled mess of fabric and weed and wades toward me kicking and splashing like a child. 

“Get out of here”…she yells. “It’s enough! You promised! For God’s sake Annie, get on with your life. It is four o’clock and we are thirsty. We want a Marguerita. Come on… Move!!”

“And a pizza…a whole pizza!” I yell back.

I blink and she is gone. 

I remember Mothers Weekend in Athens Ohio. We inhaled an entire pie after touring the bars with her sorority sisters. And for the first time in the forever hell of bereavement I am hungry for a pizza. Something is released. It is not as I expected. It is hunger.

I run. I run through the surf, thirstier than I have been in my life. I run home, grab a fast shower and head for Mamacita’s in Dewey. The bar is full, so I take my drink to the tiki hut and push in with my friend Tina. She began her happy hour after breakfast. We drink to the sea, we drink to the tourists, we push over and another joins us and we drink to him or her. It doesn’t matter.

We won’t remember anything of today... tomorrow.

At days end we watch the brilliant orb drop from heaven to proclaim, once again, the separation of dominions. It explodes into the bay and disappears. And all that was radiant becomes gray. 

Sunset: Culebra, PR. 

© 2012 Anne Armand/aka Ande Bliss

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