She lies in bed.
Where are you now?
I wonder.
Clearly, you are in the transitional zone;
you are here, but you are not.
How much of you remains,
you who told the stories,
you who lived into life,
you who danced without inhibition
through the obstacles, the barriers
of your unique, singular life...?
Your nightgown is printed all over
with the word dream, rest, sleep.
You shrink, shrivel,
collapse inward.
The television drones in the background,
a white-noise, white-vision companion.
You lie suspended
between this life and the next.
I lift the bedspread and sheet
and find your hand, tightly balled,
but as I slip one finger into the curl,
it loosens, it welcomes more fingers,
clasps them, recognizing affection,
love,
longing,
memory.
Your face reflects your pending departure,
packing itself inward,
your body down-sizing,
preparing for the move.
What's it like,
hanging in this in-between,
straddling the liminal line?
When the tiny slits of your lashless eyes close,
what do you see?
What do you feel?
peace? anticipation? fear?
In your more present moments--
"present," that is,
because who can imagine what presence,
beyond imagining,
beyond us,
you're now knowing?--
you profess confidence in your Savior,
as you have throughout your life.
This is you, fearless,
ready to move on,
forward,
inward,
upward.
We talk to you--
loudly, because your hearing aids
rest in their charger on the night stand--
about the past,
and about laughter and those we loved,
and about how much you mean to us.
We recall times you cared for us,
babysat us, fed us,
took us to movies, the beach, for dinner,
for ice cream, sat with us in church.
We recall when you made your holiday popcorn balls
wrapped in colored cellophane,
when we decorated your Christmas tree...
Are you still my aunt?
Of course--
you may now be, in fact,
more essentially my aunt
than you've ever been
as you leave behind the nonessentials,
drop whatever unnecessaries and annoyances
plague us as humans,
release the need to be anything other than who you are,
deep inside,
in that place where you and God
have always been one,
completely at rest,
entirely whole,
all the aunt, daughter, sister, child of God,
you were ever meant to be.
So that's where you are.
I get it now.
Here or there, now or then,
I want that too.
You are both here and there,
now and then,
on your way to there, to then,
to a joyful, free and simpler there, then.
Do you understand that I am saying goodbye?

Text and image © 2019 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
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