There is wind and there is nothing. Birdsong which drifts away as darkness comes wild and unruly. The heat of stars; torches in the black sky.
The last night, she lost her breath in three parts. The rise of one, the lingering in her chest, and the steady exhale from her nose. There was no struggle, no gasps, or suffocating. Just peace. Her fingers locked in mine. She was never the strongest. And no matter how firmly I held her hand and hoped to tether her life to this world of the living, she could not hang on anymore. She left in peace long before she was ever meant to.
There is candlelight and warmth and perspiration on the skin. Finding the crevices and burrowing deep. Finding the blood and the veins and lingering there.
I don't know if she heard any of the words I spoke to her that night. The times I told her I loved her as a mother should love her daughter and how I failed at times to show it to her. My first daughter, my oldest, and the one I am most proud of.
I told her stories. Memories we had together. Hoping she would remember them. Sometimes, I thought I heard her laugh, but the last of her joyous sounds had ceased to rise hours before.
She bathed in her own sweat. Her hair clung to her as if it would sink into her flesh.
We ran out of clean rags and simply kept re-rinsing the previous ones. The bucket's water was filthy. The bed reeked of disease.
Sometimes, I repeated some good stories. The ones I knew she loved hearing. The ones about her brother.
I'd tell her how proud he is of her.
I'd tell her how proud her father would be if he could see her then.
There is breath and then there is none. Life's struggle falls to silence. Death's song is a long and unending one. Let it ring in the ears.
Her silence is my echo. The last glimpses of her face pressed into the folds of my mind forever.
There is a voice and it sings forever.
Her name. Her real name.
I want to keep it forever.
Her hand. Her hand as a child.
I want to hold it forever.
There is a shadow and it makes a memory.
But it's not there anymore. Not there for me to hold anymore.
But I remember it.
I remember the shape of her fingers and the color of her skin and the texture of it on mine.
Soft against my rough, calloused, and unfeeling ones.
Always soft.
There is a song in death that we cannot ignore. And so, we follow it. Even to the ends of the earth.
And I did.
I climbed the mountains for her. I carried the weight of the world for her. I faced my fears in the frigid lands of home for her. Every hill, every snowy patch, every fall in the mud, I took for her.
I gave it all away. My name. My riches. My strength. My soul.
Only she can hear my screams and know they are real and for her, and only she will ever know that she brought my most real fears out in me and I can never fight them like I can an army of men or beasts.
I cannot fight them. I couldn't and I won't. So I sing the song of misery in its purest form to know of my grief, and I sing it again, and again, and again. For days and nights until the sun and the moon does not matter anymore.
There is cold. Merciless, it clings to the flesh. It commands not to be forgotten. So, do not. Instead, embrace it until it wears to the bones.
When the light reached past the mountain's peak, I finally found you in it. Your light mirrored in the sky.
I hoped you could see through my eyes then.
I hoped you would remember it with me.
How pure home is.
There is a path and it goes on forever. Its end unknown to its travelers. Twisting through seasons and skies and seas.
She came to me like an owl. I could see her gaze looking back at me.
Her flight was beautiful and as graceful as she was. Her feathers a rustic hue.
This is who she was always meant to be. Even though I took the skies away from her, she came back to me.
So I accepted her and gave her a new name. A name worthy of her magnificence and of her legacy.
There is only one fire to kindle and it must keep burning.
We cross the sea together perhaps for one of the last times. Almost the last time.
She takes the skies and me the land.
She flies above me and tells me not to forget. And for her, I will not.
