7 year ache

A high school friend of my mother's messaged today to say she was thinking of us today. I was grateful - who doesn't love being thought of by people who care? But I didn't know why until I remembered it is 14 May.  I'm not as raw as I have been in years past. I mean...it's been seven years and now that my dad is also on the other side, it doesn't hurt in the same way. But it does make me pause and wonder:  how does a fire start? How does a fire end? 

 Sometimes, you go North to spend time with your grandsons and lightening hits your propane tank, blowing up the house you've lived in for decades. The only thing that will survive is a cast iron skillet and a Hummel figurine that your daughter-in-law, the one you desperately loved but were too trapped in your own hell to know how to show, brought you back from Germany.  She will help you rebuild and you will love her and hate her for her resilience 

Sometimes you're driving across country to help out a friend. Maybe you're singing along to the radio, maybe you've got Josh Groban on repeat.  It might be cold, just starting to snow. Maybe you speed up slightly to get around a traffic snarl only to realise after it is too late it isn't a snarl. And you'll know you're going to die. You'll say as much, to the men who pull you out, to the mother, whose number you have memorized, to the husband you loved beyond any sense or logic.  You know you're dying and you make your peace and then you wait. You wait for us - your husband, your daughter, your son, your mother and siblings. You wait for us to find the grace and resolve to let you go onto your next adventure. 

Here's what I know: The last time I hugged you was on 8 December, 2014.  It hadn't snowed yet in Ohio and it wasn't really warm enough to warrant a heavy coat. You hugged me close. 'I didn't think you would go back. I thought you would stay this time.  But I am so proud of you, trying to make this marriage work.' You cupped my face and kissed my cheeks. 'But I also want you to know: you can always come home. Because wherever I am, you have a home.'

It was something we would say to each often, after an electric fight in Prague in 2001. 'I never know what you need, Rachel! You're too hard to figure out! Just tell me what you need! I just don't know...'

'I need you tell me I can always come home! That you won't keep sending me away. That I can always come home!' 

And this became our way of cheerleading one another, as we both twirled our a ways around the world.

And today? I know, I miss you. Today, it doesn't feel like 7 years. Today, it feels like 7 minutes. Today, today, I still remember the smell of her forehead under the charred, infected flesh as I kissed you goodbye.  I remember the flutter that filled the room when whatever it is that keeps a body in motion left her body.

But I also remember she could make me nuts.