I Did Not Fall, I Flew

His words, not mine.

I had just given him a haircut, fretted over the loss of his vision and had come to the full understanding he could not hear my voice when I said his name.

I had meant to cut his nails as I cleaned the muck from his eyes, but was interrupted by the other child running through the house demanding snacks.

Life. It moves and never breaks its rhythm for the loss, even of itself.

Three stories, but really there is only one and that is that he is gone. 3 stories -written differently -doesn’t bring him back. It doesn’t afford me another opportunity to cut his nails

so that I wouldn’t hear them on the edge, slipping. It was the sounds; the worst part. Worse than seeing him there on the ground below not moving.

Worse than the blood pouring from his perfect body.

Worse than running back and forth between both of my babies, one crying, one lying motionless.

Worse than holding him as he twitched, whispering “I love you, it’s ok baby boy, let go, let go, let go. I am here with you, let go. I love you forever.”

Worse than wrapping him up and holding him close against my body until his stiffened.

Worse than recieving the little box that holds his ashes.

Worse than walking past this place everytime I have to climb or descend the stairs, the ones I should have been carrying him down, the ones I did carry him down safely countless times before.

Worse still than the first time I arrived home, opened the door and was met with silence instead of happy spins, bone lodged in his mouth, ears fluttering like little wings.

No, the sound of his body landing, the strange subconscious realization he was falling, the faint memory of his nails against the edge. That is something I cannot beg my brain to forget.

Now, instead of sitting at my feet, blind, deaf, love and devotion. He is a spirit, he is photo on an altar, he is a memory that plays with me.