Where time stands akimbo

4ish years ago - if you go by date - I was in limbo. I was pregnant but not pregnant enough to be pregnant - if you know what I mean.

I had been back in the just over 2 months and was living in a dear friend's ramshackle flat minutes and years away from my former home. I had left  city that I deeply love but cannot live with and had pushed the bounds of my own sanity further than I ever want to see them stretch again.

I was feeling sorry for myself, missing my first born, thinking of miscarriages and changes, and life being confounding. I went to see an arty movie. I popped into a gallery. I ate gelato. I missed my mama calling me for a chat. We did that alot - chat on the phone.  For two people who lived an ocean apart, we spoke 3-4 times a week, especially since I was expecting and since I had moved back across the sea with her granddaughter.

I got off the bus, dialling her number as I walked to the flat.  I left a message.  Tomorrow, I said. Tomorrow.

The next day was a sleety cold Sunday.  We had started watching "White Collar" on Netflix. I was going to drive to Norfolk but I was so nauseous that anytime I stood, I could feel bile rising in my throat.

Maybe I'll call my mom, I said. No Norwich today.

I dozed.  My phone rang. It was dark, just after 6 pm. It was my Dad.

This is the part where I say I talked to my dad at least once a week. I am a hybrid. I cannot live next door to my parents but I can't live without them. And the minute he spoke, I knew something was not right.  Where are you, I asked.

Tulsa. Oklahoma. It's really bad.

I am going to hang up. I will call you back in a half hour with my flight information. I will be there as soon as I can.

I stared out the window, through reflections. I have to go to Oklahoma. Now.

My husband just stares at me. Can you sort out flights? Via Houston or Dallas, I think.

He reaches for me. I think I need to throw up, I say, looking at him helplessly. All I want in that moment is my mommy.

It is strange because she didn't actually die until May but...well, she certainly wasn't alive.  You had to meet Peggy to fully feel her personality.

My mom was a wonderful,  larger - than -  life head case.  She was this crazy combination of naive and terrifyigly savvy. She infuriated me and I loved her deeply and we took great pride in how relationship in how strong our friendship was. We had put a lot of work into that relationship, into getting through both of our piles of crap decisions, getting through being the mother of a bitchy daughter and the daughter of a bitchy mother. It's hereditary, we used to say defiantly.

She caught fire and people risked their lives to save her broken charred body and when I saw her that first time after the accident, her head was the size of a battered overinflated basketball and her body was covered up like a Bmummy movie. 

What stays with me in those first days, more than anything, was the smell.  Charred flesh and hair, infection, death, antiseptic, and bleach all blend together.

What stays with me now is the incredible people we met at every turn who held space for us, who cleaned my mother's ravaged body, who held our hands and refused to lie about the odds. The people who didn't judge to harshly when we asked them to use smaller words. The people who painted her nails on her remaining unsingd hand, who stroked her hair when we couldn't, who let us stay longer than we should have.

On a bad day, what stays with me now is the sounds she made the night before her body - already shutting down - gave out and the way she held on to say goodbye to my brother. The smells of her decaying body follow me everywhere. The stories of other families' losses move in close and I try to fathom how we get through such loss. The kicker is that I am not a stranger to death. I've almost died once or twice and I don't say that glibly.  I've buried a tiny baby boy, so small and frail. I've helped intern my grandfather and I've gaped the casket of a dear friend that had to stay closed because Meningitis is a bastard.

But most days are not bad days. I sometimes feel guilty about that. Most of my days - even when I cannot sleep, like now, because my flipping mind just won't stop whirring - are solid, liveable days. I am chubbier than I want to be, older than I feel, more alive than I often feel I have a right to be.  But sometimes, I throw my head back and sob whever I am because I really should have saved that last voicemail.