At Least They're Committed

We’ve had beautiful sunrises in my neighborhood. Even in the chill, I’ll walk outdoors and take a video — west to east, front of the house to the back — of the brilliant peach, pink, orange, silvery sunrise reflecting off of the cumulonimbus clouds.

Sighing, I head back inside. “It’s just another day. Du du du du du du, it’s just another daaaay.”

Slicing open the pumpkin I nurtured for four months, I divide it into uneven chunks and toss the pieces into the chickens’ pen. They squabble and peck as if their very existence depends on that particular pumpkin, despite having an entire bin filled with high-grade crumbles. I wonder if they tossed my corpse into the pen how long it would take the fowl to clean my bones. Probably at least a week.

My life is the epitome of the idiom “No good deed goes unpunished.” So I’ve been crying. A. Lot.

But life continues, whether we like it or not. There are leaves to rake, shrubs to plant, the garden to tear down and equipment to store. I can do this. I have to, I guess. What other choice is there? Curling up in fetal position, rocking back and forth and letting my brain run amok? Dreadful.

Not sure if Halloween actually crept up on me this year, or if I just wasn’t in the mood. Last year I purchased a set of pumpkin carving tools so I could be creative. Never got around to it this year. Last year, I had a whole Day of the Dead display. This year, I placed the three small, plastic sugar skulls I painted in 2022 on the front porch. They’re now wind-scattered across the yard amid the leaves that I raked up that gusts redistributed.

My dad always told my brother that his dad, our Grandpa Gray, sends us the most beautiful sunsets. Now when we see a beautiful sunset, we thank them both. And I thank my dad for the beautiful sunrises, too, and share videos with my mom, sister and brother. “Did you see the sunrise?”

Applause echoes through my brain. Yay me! I saw another sunrise. My one son won’t talk to my other son and D, Bugaboo and I are caught in the middle. Our property taxes just got jacked up $209 a month even though the value of our house tanked and there’s nothing I can do about it until the first of the year. I’m turned-up-nose deep in fulfilling favors that are being asked of me because I’m “the one person who knows how to do this sort of thing.” GOD forbid anyone else learn! Why would they when they can get me to do it?

“Good girl!” I cajole myself. I got out of bed.

“Good girl!” I say, stepping outside to look at the beautiful sky.

“Good girl!” I’ve made my bed.

“Good girl!” I feel like spiking my morning coffee with whiskey, but I never do.

“Good girl!” I’m working and doing a damn good job of it.

Not sure whether this has come up before, but I started to die once when I was still living in the apartment. I was on the futon, D had the bedroom but he’d already gone to work so it was late morning. Becoming aware I wasn’t breathing, I tried to force myself to wake up. I willed my eyes to open and when one did just a slit I could see the antique cuckoo clock my dad got his parents now mounted on my wall. I had just had it refurbished, but it wasn’t wound.

I couldn’t keep even one eye open.

I couldn’t move, it was as if I was paralyzed by my fading brain. I commanded my eyes to open again and I croaked out, “Max, I can’t breathe.” Slight success and my eyes slammed shut again . . .

The dog and I were in a cement maze, wandering, able to see that the drive to my parents’ home (by then already just my mom’s house) was at the top of the stairs through the golden gate from whence I’d come, yet unwilling or unable to go back.

When I finally found my way through — navigating the tunnels of what seemed like an endless underground skatepark — Max and I ran up the northeasterly stairs to find ourselves in a field. The exit still visible behind and below us, we were in a plain of high-desert wildflowers that led to a forest. To the west, north and east there were in each direction three tornadoes of radiant colors of peach, pink and gray, spiraling, yes, but in a peaceful, welcoming and non-violent way.

My parents’ home was to the east, I knew, and a path led that direction. But there was no sign of the house itself and I knew the route would take me past it unseen because it was always and always would be too far away, and if I had continued I would go farther and farther into the forest and I would be gone altogether.

I had a choice. I could take the path. I now knew where it led. It was the path not to my home, but Home. Max and I took a step forward, but then it occurred to me that Dad was not there. If Dad was not there, it was not my time to be there. So we turned back.

Max and I quickly shuffled back down into the concrete tunnels and found our way to the entrance far more easily than before. Still entombed, we got to the steps that led to the lane and I looked down and saw what seemed to be a body on a gurney on the bare earth, covered by a pure white blanket. I was sure that, if pulled it back, I would see myself.

“How long has it been here,” a nurse behind me asked a doctor, both of whom manifested from nowhere. “42 years,” he replied. Had I been gone that long? My family! My children! Were they still there? I pulled back the sheet.

There was no one there. In fact, there was no-thing there.

Max was licking my face, in real life, responding to my call-out. Again I forced my eyes to open and, this time, my lungs to fill. I gasped for air, choked and coughed up fluid until my chest ached, but my body heaved back into life. Back here.

My dad wasn’t there. It wasn’t my time.

The leaves are raked and bagged, the shrubs planted, the garden torn down in anticipation of next year — if there is one.

Good girl.