so_this_is_what_it_takes kerry there was a time when i thought if you died too i would die too and now there are times when i want to let go of you years of trying to be seen and heard make you so tired. last time i was home i spent too much time alone, one afternoon i just wandered around taking pictures of the rain dripping off the trees and flowers and trying not to cry because you weren’t there, weren’t walking with me like you used to, was raging about how much time i’ve spent wanting to be like you, how many words i’ve devoted to you, and here i am again. we sat the four of us on the porch, you with your skinny legs and owl glasses, peter so sanguine and mom practically twitching, and you looked down into your lap like a guilty child old man i left saying if this doesn’t change i’m not coming back, i’ll see you again when i know i won’t come home to shit like this. you didn’t like it; you don’t like being told what to do. by me, like me. so this is what it takes. in the hospital i had dreams i can’t tell you about. i can’t tell you how we floated in deep space together and how tight i clung to your hands, i knew if i let go it would be forever. you sitting by my bed smiling at me while a gauzy red curtain slipped down between us, your hands became lobster claws. one morning i woke up in a strange room and saw a whiteboard hung on the wall with the date written on it, maybe to ground me in reality (impossible). the nurse was on my left… soon i grew so attached to her, her round face and dark eyes and her hands... and you were on my right in a flannel and levi’s as always, and it was like dragging myself to shore out of some cold violent ocean i said am i going to die and she said shhh go to sleep i said again am i going to die and you said no, and i went back to sleep so this is what it takes i guess carrie said this is the only way some people know how to show love: to care for the sick, to use physical proximity mom says, i’ll never stop bothering you no matter how far you try to run and hide, my runaway bunny, but you say i just don’t understand you, you always do things the hard way. some people can’t do more than hand you a tissue and hope you know it means love. when i was in seventh grade you still had a job, you were printing photos in the basement and driving the yellow vanagon. it was autumn. mom had left for work and i was supposed to catch the bus but instead was in the bathroom sobbing because i’d had my first period and knew childhood was over. i knew there were things that could happen to me. you stood on the other side of the door and told me you were going to cvs, would return with supplies and ice cream. said stay home with me and the dog today, carebear. the next day i went to school dressed entirely in army green and didn’t speak to anyone. so this is what it takes. i think of you sitting in the kitchen with a bowl of manhattan clam chowder, reading the nation. i look at the clock and know when you’re having your afternoon snack: a couple of hershey kisses and a cup of coffee, pale with milk. i know when you nap, mouth half open, legs covered with a blanket and hands resting on your stomach, the radio tuned to npr. you used to have a bloody mary or a white russian before dinner but now you drink hardly anything besides water and diluted cranberry juice. how did you quit coffee? i asked incredulously. you said you just did. got tired of coffee, stopped drinking it. it’s so easy for you to let go of things. i try to understand you, try to reach you but you don’t reach for me. last night you told me you thought of your photographs as a kind of diary, regretted not dating everything. how stupid of me, you said. but when it takes a month to finish a roll of film… i get that, i said. these are the crumbs i hold onto. two winters ago, i stood on the corner of 6th and bryant and called you to say hi. see what’s goin on, likely nothing. you said the word leukemia so flippantly, and then you said where are you? i said i’m here, my voice breaking. i put my sunglasses on and i walked as fast as i could as if could walk towards you or maybe get away from you. you asked me if i was crying and i said no, though of course i was, and you said you should have waited to tell me, not ruin my trip. there was a brief time when it felt like everyone was dying of cancer at once. we lost ella, bob, dan-ellen and then jim. we lost debbie. we almost lost julian, right after rella. then john who’d put his camera away too and gone to live in the sticks. ryan was dead already, and katie too. you said it’s nothing to be upset about, it’s early, i don’t even need any treatment yet. you said hell, something else will kill me first. when i got back to joy’s and she asked me how my day was i dropped my bag and jacket on the floor and said well my dad has cancer so there’s that, can i please have a beer? she handed me a bottle of miller lite and started rolling a joint, asked if i wanted to talk about it and i said there’s not much to say. she said how about let’s watch tv and get takeout. perfect. i don’t want to be the one sitting by your bed, but i would. despite everything. 211001 ... kerry ugh typo on the first damn line. 211001 ... raze that typo does nothing to take away from how devastatingly beautiful this is and how hard it hits. the extra "too" creates its own kind of music, even if it isn't the music you meant to make. maybe typos happen to remind us we're all human, even when someone is writing something like this that's so breathtaking, reading it feels like you've been allowed to hold the writer's heart in your hand for a few minutes. anyway. i just wanted to say that. 211001 ... tender square we found out about leigh ann’s lung cancer over christmas 2020. michael and i had just arrived at his dad and step-mom’s house in austin after our flight from detroit had come in on december 14. anne and david, michael’s siblings, showed up the house shortly thereafter to spend time with us. we were only together for an hour or so before mom called tim’s cell phone and he put it on speaker so she could address us all as we huddled around the kitchen island. she reminded us about the persistent cough she’d been suffering from for months. earlier that summer, her and david had gone on a trip to palestine and we thought she may have contracted sars. she put off going to the doctor’s to get it checked out, even though she was nurse practitioner, figuring it would go away on its own. before we left detroit, michael had told his mom we cancelled our flight to pensacola, which we were expected to take from austin. he thought that she had pneumonia and because i have asthma, he was trying to protect me. i didn’t want to cancel our trip, i didn't ask him to do this, but he insisted. on the phone, mom told us that a good friend of hers, jim, a pulmonologist she knew from a nearby hospital she'd done consulting work at, took some x-rays and found a black mass on her lung. “he says he thinks it’s cancer,” she said, “but we’re waiting for more tests to be sure.” at first, i thought she was telling us this to prepare for the fact that down the line we could be finding out it was cancer. and then the more i listened, the more i realized she was telling us that she had it. now. jim, her doctor friend, had told her that he was 95% certain that’s what it was and he used his connections to get her into a specialist early in the new year, which is much faster than most people get seen in the us health system. after the phone call ended, michael and i retired to our bedroom in a daze. we cried. he told me that if he lost his mother, he would be okay, as if he was already bracing himself for something he knew would come. “do you think we should rebook our flight to pensacola?” i asked him. he said no; we’d already changed our return flight to depart from austin, it was too much hassle. had i known that was going to be the last christmas she would be alive, i would have fought him harder on that. 211002 what's it to you? 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