Last words

I don’t remember what your exact last words were. But you said you wanted to swim. When you were younger, your brother held you down in the water and you’d been afraid of going deep ever since. Something I discovered when we learned how to scuba dive together in Guam, and you risked the bends to get back to the surface. So I thought it was beautiful that in your in-between, while your unfocused eyes searched the room for anchors and you found your voice for the first time in months, you had let yourself into the water.

I got into the water, too. After watching you take your very last breath, after we read your Mary Oliver poem, after we sat in the room next to your body eating sandwiches and waiting for the cremation people to come, after we cleaned up the house, we went to the beach. The beach you had been so eager to live near but rarely visited. It was sunset, and Kara and I ran into the water in our clothes. We went farther and farther in, laughing at how insane and magnificent and tragic and long and fleeting it all is. Mo followed me in, rushing past the breaking waves that normally scare him.

I stayed in the water. I moved back to San Francisco, close to Nisha, where I could breathe. I was living on her old block, and around the corner from one of Holland’s friends, who I didn’t know anything about but thought could maybe be my friend. I made plans, I went out, I renovated a life. I thought we’d be talking more, but I didn’t hear you very often.

I learned more about my new neighbor, and he became a character. The best parts of you that live inside of me came alive with him. I started to hear you more. Sometimes it was sunlight, and sometimes it was a haunting. But with your help, or in spite of you, I’m not sure, I kept moving toward the warmth.

You were always getting into proximity of the things you loved. You were so good at that. We lived a block from the beach. You had a lot of cool swimsuits. We owned a China set with 12 place settings. We had every kind of cheese knife you could imagine. We bought a piano. You got a Ph.D. at 51. You did a photoshoot for your JDate profile.

I knew you were brave. You had a childhood most people wouldn’t survive. You wanted a daughter, and you made one. You left an abusive marriage. You bought a house in a new place and built a new life as a single mom. You got an A in organic chemistry. You were excited 99% of the time and you brought light and softness everywhere you went. I found your high school diary - you were brave then too.

But getting in the water was hard. So we didn’t go to the beach. We didn’t have dinner parties, and we didn’t play the piano. You didn’t change career paths. You did not get married again.

Your spirit was always a little too big for the body you came in. Your last words didn’t seem connected, but I could see you looking out over your life, the nonlinear set of paths untrodden. As if you were running out of time, you said, “I want to be a grandma.” Maybe you were getting ready for something else all this time, something we couldn’t see yet.

I hope I can hear you again soon. I try to remember your lightness, but I carry the weight of your unlived lives. Maybe one day you’ll tell me what you passed to me on your way out, where to pick up. Or maybe you’ll just tell me to swim.

PRAYER

May I never not be frisky.

May I never not be risqué.

May my ashes, when you have them, friend,

and give them to the ocean,

leap in the froth of the waves,

still loving movement,

still ready, beyond all else,

to dance for the world.

Mary Oliver