A Eulogy to Time, and Place, and Memory

Written 3/27


I remember after Jonathan passed away,  we visited his wife's, 
my friend's, apartment. I remember walking into the bathroom
and seeing his glasses, and his cologne,  sitting there by the sink -
the only physical elements associated with his person
that I had ever seen, only days after he died. I wanted to touch them,
to connect myself to him, but I was too afraid to move them. I suppose
I put too much weight on the sentimentality of time, and place,
and memory. Those glasses, last touched by him, are connected 
by a thin thread to the past of his living existence.
A shroud, or veil, still surrounded them -
as if the time and place hadn't yet caught up with them. They didn't know
yet that he was dead - to them, he was still alive, as if his hands 
still hovered over them, and they expected to be picked right back up.


That same consciousness follows me here, in my grandparents', 
now only my grandmother's, home. "Just use my bathroom," she said to me,
as I prepared for a nightly vigil on an inflatable mattress in the study
next door. I did so, noting once again the placement of everything,
wondering which items, layed askew once before with little importance
or weight, might suddenly trigger that same path, that same threaded
connection  to the living past. There is a vanity here, at which sits a stool,
a white towel draped across it. There sits her brush,
her vitamins, a dollar bill - out of whose pocket, I wonder? - 
a small mirror, which was once attached
to a stand, but now is held together with duct tape, sitting dustily, 
face up, beneath a canister of ointment and an unplugged nightlight.
I wonder, how young was her first reflection out of that small mirror? 
Was it a special gift?  How long ago was it placed there,
used for the last time before accumulating dust,
oblivious to the present moment and remembering an earlier reflection?
If it were touched, to what moment in time would she find herself
connected again?


There's a quiet, awe-inspiring majesty and grace to the widowed matriarch.
Taking a shower in her, once their, bathroom, I discovered only 
a small bar of soap, a container of shower gel, mostly full, and
a small container of hotel conditioning shampoo.
It's amazing to peer behind the scenes of a woman so strong, so 
put-together, and find a half-full bottle of travel-size shampoo -
behind the scenes of the woman  who, only moments ago,
made sausage biscuits for everyone,
whose bright eyes peered so wisely and agëd from over her mug of 
hot chocolate at the head of the breakfast table, the mug she
absent-mindedly had to reheat  twice in the microwave as we
talked about my grandfather's final hours,
interwoven with the story of their wedding
(how strange, these narratives of time). "We just told the congregation
there would be a wedding after the service,
and those that wanted to stay, stayed."


Now she glides throughout the house, in a simple black dress and 
strings of pearls, making sure we're all well and have everything we need 
to get ready to attend the memorial service - 
one by one, people leave the house to "meet us there."
Will we be the last to leave, the ones everyone is "meeting there,"
turning at the door to say those words to nothing but an empty house,
the haunting void of which may ache from his absence,
but cannot come with us to pay its respects?