I was just home from watching my 87 year old mother die.
For her, that meant the blessing of peace after months of fear and unease. The cruel additives to her illness.
For me, that meant the agony of watching light leave her eyes.
She’d fought her whole life to be old enough, brave enough, busy enough, happy enough, caring enough to make her own way in the world.
Fiercely ignoring a few realities that might have stifled her spirit, but didn’t.
Living on her own terms.
And that included her determined walk to the post office and back again to mail the many cards and letters she wrote, the caring she sent out daily into the world. Her breath of fresh air. Her exercise.
Her final gift was the donation of her body to medical research.
I came home to Helena—in awe of her living, chastened by my own.
I am again now as I gather these words.
But in that moment, my eye caught our newspaper’s advertisement for a paper carrier in our neighborhood.
Why not, I thought. Prescribed exercise before work. A strategy that would keep my feet to the fire of walking.
Dave had the good grace to ask if I was nuts. But left it at that.
The job was mine.
By design, my first day was a Saturday. Not by design, following an ice storm. Even the grass was slick. What I thought would be 20 minutes of walking, took two hours and involved several treks back home where—in good light—I could try to match house numbers with reality. Oh shit, that apartment building had a door at the back. Damnit, that garage was a house.
Then came Sunday and while the footing was better, I hadn’t reckoned on manhandling the grocery supplements and funnies and car dealership inserts.
But I wouldn’t give up right away.
I hung on long enough to go through four months of collecting what was owed, little book of payment tickets in hand.
I hung on long enough to go from a brightening sky through the time change that sent me back to dark again.
I hung on long enough to develop a weariness that no amount of napping could shake.
I hung on until a young girl, out for an early morning walk in Helena, was kidnapped and killed in our end of town.
Dave’s only final request was that I keep the sturdy canvas apron—pockets front and back—that came with the route. Perfect for repair jobs at the Land.
Now, I cannot piece my thinking together. Or imagine Dave’s real dismay and disbelief—and the annoyances of my 5:00 am alarm.
I only know that we all face grief and remembering differently. ©
