Excerpt #2 from “The Death and Adventures of Jackie”

…Time and place became fluid over the next few days.  At times, Anna walked around as if she was completely absent from her mind and body, shuffling through the house with “vacancy” written across her face.  She held her children as they cried deep, racking sobs of grief over the loss of their Nana.  Held them close and infused them with love and certainty of her flesh, yet was absent at the same time.  She was traveling the connections of spirit and energy, “walking between the worlds,” somewhere in between where her mom had gone to, and where she needed to stay.  When she heard her words of advice and strength to friends and relatives, it was as if she was sitting beside herself watching the events unfold.  The term “beside herself with grief” made literal sense now. She sat there, right next to her body, making unspoken comments, “Wow. Good job…you said that well,” as she watched herself comfort others in mourning.

After an unknown number of days, Anna somehow managed to accomplish the task of booking a plane flight to Wyoming to “take care of her mother’s affairs”.  What a strange phrase.  She remembered her brother saying to her, “I booked a flight to Wyoming” when she spoke to him on the phone.  “Why?” she asked.

“To take care of mom.” he replied.

“Oh. Okay.  I’ll do that too,” was all that rolled out of her mouth.  If she thought about it for one second, she would become a raw, shrieking banshee, and she wasn’t sure she would ever come back to a place of sanity.  So, she continued to speak in calm, measured tones, like gingerly stepping on slippery rocks in a river, trying not to slip and fall under.

She wasn’t even sure how she ended up in a friend’s car who arrived at 4:00 in the morning to take her to the airport.  All she knew was that her friend asked, “Would you mind sitting in the back seat with Stella, I think she would be happier with you next to her.”  Stella was a beautiful infant elf-child, with one of those faces that said, “I know you, and I know what you’re up to. This isn’t my first time around.”  Anna’s favorite people on the planet were babies, and was often called “the baby whisperer.”  She sat down, put her hand on the car seat, and Stella curled her tiny fern-like baby hand around Anna’s fingers.  She smiled with a purity of love so calm and bright, gazing right into Anna’s eyes.  The two of them stayed in this perfect space together until the car arrived at the airport.

Touching down in Wyoming, Anna met her brother, father, and Jackie’s friends, the Cottonwoods. The first place they were brought to was what looked like a junkyard.  A man handed Anna an envelope that contained a bracelet and a ring.  She immediately slipped these on, and heard the “menfolk” talking about details of the accident.  All of their words sounded as if they were underwater, or in a tunnel far away.  As she stood there, not comprehending a single word they said, Anna was suddenly drawn to this huge, twisted hunk of metal that was once a car.  Drawn, as if pulled by a tractor beam in a Sci-Fi movie, Anna found herself standing with her hands on this mess. In a moment of complete clarity, she wrenched open the mangled door and crawled inside the broken heap. She pulled the door closed with a deafening crunch, and saw the looks of confusion and concern coming from those in the distance.  As if she manifested super powers, she put up her hand in a gesture of, “Come no closer”, sat back, closed her eyes, and breathed in her mother. Sitting in the last place her mother had inhabited her body, she felt the essence of her fill her up, infuse her.

Jackie was practicing the ebb and flow of her new existence, when she felt a pull in what would have been the pit of her stomach.  She focused her attention and saw her daughter breathing deeply in the car that she died in, and saw a wrangle of confused and frightened men, startled into action, walking towards her.  She gently put her hand, what seemed giant sized, yet made of shimmering energy, in front of the men.  They stopped walking towards her daughter, just shook their heads and stared at her.  She then pulled herself in tightly and entered the car.  She shivered and shook with her daughter, both of them laughing and smiling.  She gazed into her daughter’s beautiful face, her face, and smoothed lines of grief.  “You’ve got this.”

After her “mother infusion”, Anna finally decided to get out of the car and deal with the concerned men.

“What the fuck was that?” her brother asked.

“Blah, blah, blah” was all she heard.  She just smiled beatifically, and said, “I just had to be where mum was, that’s all.  I’m completely fine.  I promise.”  And she was.  She hadn’t felt this grounded yet.  “Thanks mom.” she grinned, and felt the power of her secret residing within her. With this strange, sweet power, she was able to take care of the details of her mother’s death with steadfast calm and dignity.  After the car lot, they caravaned to the morgue.  Now, at this point, she was feeling downright giddy, almost drunk on her mom’s energy. She sat in a waiting area with her brother, father, and the Cottonwoods, while the man who had taken care of her mom approached.

While they were sitting there, this man showed them a newspaper clipping about the accident.

“Five Killed on Hwy. 220 over weekend”

At 3:05 on Sunday afternoon the left front tire on a 1971 GMC pickup being driven by Cody S. Marshall blew as the vehicle headed south on Wyoming Highway 220 seven miles south of Casper, according to Sgt. Sean Tucker of the Wyoming Highway Patrol.  The truck then swerved in the northbound lane and collided head on with a 2003 Lincoln Navigator driven by Jacqueline V. Sweeney of Banner, Tucker said. Marshall, 30, and his passenger Sara L. Spencer-Wright, 42, were dead the time rescue workers arrived at the scene.  Neither victims, who were both from Casper, were wearing seat belts, Tucker said.

And although Sweeney, 62, and one of her passengers, Paul M. Curray, 52, of London, England, were wearing seat belts, the two were killed in the collision.  Curray’s wife, Nadia, survived and was taken to the Wyoming Medical Center where she was listed in stable condition Monday afternoon.  Nadia Curray was also wearing a safety belt, Tucker said.

All Anna could focus on was “Sweeney, 62”.  She started giggling, which made everyone around her visibly uncomfortable.  She said to her brother, Jack, “mom was 62.”

“62…no way,” said Jack.  Then both of them started laughing.  Finally, John Cottonwood asked what was so funny.  “We never knew how old mom was.  She completely forgot, and never remembered how old she was, or when her own birthday was.  She was always confusing it with mine!” Anna replied, unable to control bursts of laughter.

“Would you like to see your mother?” These words snapped her out of her hilarity, and she consciously “pulled herself together”, marveling at how many phrases made sense to her now, and perfectly described her experience. She had just been staring at those around her, saying, “well of course I do!” when she realized that the words she was speaking so calmly never actually made it to her lips. It took great effort to leave the familiar and comfortable space that her mother infused her with, deep inside herself, and yet somehow outside of her body as well, to find that she needed to use her physical body, primarily her throat, lips, and mouth, in order for others to hear what she was saying. She pulled into her mind an image of her vocal cords, lips and teeth, and…with great effort, managed to speak out loud.  She and Jack followed this strangely comforting, steadfast, no nonsense man into a small room. A thought slipped into her mind, “Man…this guy is good.” For just a moment she paused, fervently hoping that these words didn’t slip outside of her mouth, as a smoke cloud drifting lazily from a woman’s lips who had just exhaled a cigarette. She looked at her companions, and realized gratefully that this was not the case.

Before her, laid out on a table, was the body of her mother. Immediately, Anna felt a ball, a glob of amorphous energy, yet somehow manifested physically in her gut, regurgitate out of her. It swelled up from her belly, traveling, forcing itself upwards through the center of her chest until she was bursting with it. It poured forth from her throat…a gasping, all encompassing guffaw that bent her body forward. She covered her face with her hands, desperately trying to catch the hysterical laughter as it poured out of her, yet it was futile.  It spilled through the spaces between her fingers, pooling on the floor. She looked up into the confused, concerned faces of Jack and this other man, tears streaming down her face, hands still covering her mouth, afraid of what might come forth if she lowered them.  Miraculously, her brother and the attendant confused this hysterical laughter with hysterical sobbing. “I’ve got to get these guys out of here”, she realized. The need to be alone with this beautiful body that once housed her mother’s enormous spirit was so strong, she had to, once again, “pull herself together” and resist the urge to shriek, “Get out! Get out of here!” while shoving them toward the door. Anna flung some corner of her brain, the one that governs speech, out into the dark, murky space of a perfect thing to say, and it latched onto a cliche. “Could I have a few moments alone with her?” She heard herself ask, through giggles and gasps disguised as sobs.

“Of course” replied the calm, centered man as he escorted her brother out of the room. Jack turned once before leaving. “Are you okay?” Her brother’s genuinely concerned features softened her selfish, indulgent need to be “in her moment.”

“Yeah.  I really am.  I just need to be alone with mom for a few minutes.  I’ll be fine, I promise.” This seemed to be what her brother needed to feel alright about leaving her alone.

“Careful, or they’ll toss you in the loony bin!” her mother’s voice once again slipped into her skin. Anna breathed these words deep into her lungs, and calmly looked at the body before her.  She laughed again, the reality that this was a shell slamming into her understanding of all things. It was incredulous! Her mother was absolutely, one hundred percent, not in there. A feeling of deep respect overtook her. She reverently placed her hands on her mother’s body.  Her feet, her legs, her hips, her belly, her chest, arms, hands, neck, finally leaning in, examining her face.  It was like nothing she could possibly describe. Words fail. Again. This face, so familiar, yet so unlike her mother. The features were all correct, yet the energy, the vigor, the monumental life force that infused these features glaringly absent. She lovingly touched her mother’s cheek. Then her lips. “So, so beautiful,” she whispered. “What a beautiful body you were gifted with. Lucky you. So very, very beautiful.”

Oh!  In life her mother was a master of senses.  She was huge.  Huge!  Bigger than….bigger than anything.  Anna gazed, reflecting on her mother. “She was my mom.  Mine.  How lucky am I?  She was big, brown, and gorgeous.  The most beautiful woman I have ever seen, or will see no doubt.” She was soft and full of curvaceous warmth.  You could nestle against her and your body matched hers in sweet embrace.  She enfolded you. Soft. Big.  An earth mama hug.  She was always bigger than her body would allow, she extended far beyond her skin.  Skin!  Skin soft as…I don’t know, so soft you could almost not feel it.  Imperceptibly soft.  And when she smiled.  Oh…dazzling!  A dazzling smile that shot you with warm sugar straight into your heart, and it stayed there, a warm tingle.

“Yep. She had the whole package,” sneakily, snarkily, wiggled into her thoughts. This broke the dam and the giggles overtook her again. Then..just a feel good, life affirming laugh. Anna took a deep breath, kissed her fingers, then gently placed them on her mother’s lips. She walked around to the head of the table. Closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply as her arms raised up into the space above her head.

Jackie looked on as her daughter walked around her body, and stood, as if in sacred ceremony, and collected energy from the air around her, raising her arms, slowly, slowly, spreading out like wings, until they stretched out above her head, palms and fingers spread wide, head tilted back toward the ceiling. Swaying gently with her arms outstretched above her, gently dancing as the tops of trees do when blown by the wind. “I don’t think she realizes how close she is to flying,” Jackie mused. She watched as her daughter drew her arms back down her body, repeating the process, exactly three times.

“You were so beautiful. So strong. Thank you so much. Thank you so, so much,” she stated out loud, over and over, the tears calmly rolling down her face, permanently carving spirit lines that only her mother could see clearly, or that she herself, only herself, could see clearly, every time she looked in the mirror. Always surprised at how remarkable it was that no one else could see them, not knowing at the time, that for years later, she would get caught up in her reflection in the bathroom mirror, tracing the lines, recalling the moment they were engraved, with tenderness and a grateful heart.

“You really aren’t in there,” she said with a quirky smile, as she gazed down onto the face of her mother adored, stroking her hair. It was then, playing with her mother’s hair, that a reckless thought burst in, throwing open the doors of what would be considered appropriate behavior.

“I need a piece of your hair,” Anna realized. She gently pulled on some hair on the top of her mother’s head, expecting it to come out willingly. All that happened was the entire head shifted in the direction of the pressure. Anna applied herself, and tugged with a little more effort.  Her mother’s head just moved, lifelessly, in the direction the hair was tugged. “Oh Shit.” Thought mother and daughter simultaneously. “You’d better hurry up,” Jackie said to her daughter, with that special way of speaking to her that eased right into her brain with immediacy. “Someone walks in on you now, and it’s over. You really look like you’ve lost it.” Anna looked at the doorway to the room, realizing that she had been in there for quite some time, and that her brother would come looking for her. She imagined what she would look like to him, urgently tugging on the hair of his dead mother’s head, cursing under her breath, “Come on, come on…just a few pieces.” She burst out laughing again, as did Jackie, when finally the skull relented, releasing a few beautiful perfect, silver hairs. Giggling, she slipped these into the front pocket of her pants, and took a deep, cleansing, steadying breath. She leaned over and kissed her mother’s forehead. “I love you. I love you so much. Thank you so much for being my mom.” She slowly walked away, the fingers of one hand and her eyes gently tracing over her mother’s body…a grateful prayer. A blessing of surrender. Of letting go. She turned and looked once more, at the doorway, on the body of her mother. Smiling, serene, she walked out of the room, her secret tucked safely away, a smoldering presence of truth and abiding love.