I surround myself with old photos and old memories and she is so vibrant, so alive and present in all of them that “was” doesn’t feel quite right.
When I talk about the things my parents have always shared — their house, at a minimum, but also their friends, their community, their way of being in the world — do I shift to past tense to indicate what’s no longer physically shared? Oh, but it’s all so very shared. Still, actively, right now.
I scroll through twitter in the morning and see a little moment I might tell her about (the type of exchange that makes up so much of the local politics she loved) and I feel her smile at the comment. I feel how we would have talked about the election we’re in the early days of and I how much would have eaten up all her opinions on it, no matter how humbly they were given. I would have reveled in the soft passion that surely would have flowed through them. I always loved seeing her passion — no, I love seeing her passion, still. I feel the rhythm of her response, the way she would have moved her hands while talking and it fills me up. It makes tears come up again, of course, but it also fills me with warmth. Every part of her fills me with warmth.
See, the tenses are hard. My love for her isn’t in the past, my relationship with her isn’t in the past. It’s right here, right now, filling me up and overflowing out of me.
I don’t want it ever to be in the past.
So forgive me if I slip into “is” sometimes; I promise I’m not deluding myself. I know some parts of linear time are inescapable for everyone.
But I’m going to hang on as tightly as I can to the parts that aren’t. How does that poem go?
—
I AM PLEASED TO TELL YOU, Mary Oliver
Mr. Death, I am pleased to tell you, there
are rifts in your long black coat. Today
Rumi (obit. 1273) came visiting, and not for
the first time. True he didn’t speak with
his tongue but from memory, and whether
he was short or tall I still don’t know.
But he was as real at the tree I was
under. Just because something’s physical
doesn’t mean it’s the greatest. He
offered a poem or two, then sauntered on.
I sat awhile feeling content and feeling
contentment in the tree also. Isn’t
everything in the world shared? And one
of the poems contained a tree, so of
course the tree felt included. That’s
Rumi, who has no trouble slipping out of
your long coat, oh Mr. Death.
—
Oh, Mr. Death. Please never mend the rifts in your long black coat. I need her too much to never have her visit again.
