Days had flown by while scrambling to make all the arrangements for the funeral. Finally with all the details hammered out it was time to tackle the hardest part.
I arrived at the apartment on a beautiful summer morning that only confused the task at hand because of its very opposition to what needed to be done. The sun was out, wind gently blowing, the birds idly talking to one another. They were probably talking about me or everything that had happened over the past few days.
I tapped my thumbs on the steering wheel for a minute or two getting myself prepared, working the kinks out of my mind and worse yet, slightly enjoying the scenery as well. Seemed so twisted considering the task at hand. After a minute or two I said the hell with it and got out of the jeep.
While walking to the door I found myself slowly compartmentalizing everything like I used to do as a kid. It always made life a little easier, should work here as well I thought.
Opening the door I stood there looking around at everything. This was a home once. Broken in so many ways, though it still had good times too. Now I looked upon everything as fifteen years of accumulated debris, and all of it had to go. There was so little time to get things done and I did want to at least gather together what few items of value (family wise) there was, after all, that was all I had left.
Then began the sorting of what was trash, the runs to the dumpster, the packing of the jeep with what was good. Phone calls to donate furniture and loading it all up. Several days this went on, long days.
Then one morning while I was running stuff to the dumpster I decided to take a break and smoke a cigarette. Now my mother did not allow smoking in the house because she thought it would help her quit. So we used to always go outside on the steps to do our smoking. Well I said to myself “the heck with that, there isn’t anybody here to tell me different!” So I lit up and started working again. This is when I decided, let me clean up the downstairs bathroom. So I go and open the door and was immediately choking on the strongest scent of gunpowder I had ever smelled. I knew at that moment my mother had made her presence known. I mean the knowledge was so intense and so certain there was no doubting what my mind and nose was telling me. I then looked inside the bathroom (seeing nothing but,) and raised my cigarette up to my lips, took a puff, exhaled, and proceeded to have a conversation with my mother.
“Yes I am smoking in the house! No, I don’t care if you don’t like it! You shouldn’t of done what you did and then I wouldn’t have to be here doing this!”
Suddenly I turned my back to the bathroom entrance and walked away.
Ten minutes or so later I walked back and the smell was completely gone. She was gone.
I started thinking about what I had said to her. My last words were not necessarily nice, I was angry, rightly so, though that isn’t the best way to end a life with another person, literally.
Needless to say, she never came back for another visit, then or ever again.
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Aaron's Poetry Page 