A Well Staring at the Sky: A Death Foretold — Part 7

Read Part 14: A Magnet

Susan’s ashes are received by the family and kept in Shawn’s pantry until Mother and Mary have the fortitude to retrieve them in October. On another visit, my Mother and Mary spread Susan’s ashes in Mary’s backyard. I am not there.

Mother tells me about this over the phone on a dark morning as I arrive at the metro station to go to work. She says it so nonchalantly, like it should have been expected. I am paralyzed and can barely breathe or speak. I have been denied two means of closure: to see Susan through each stage of the disease and into death and to perform the last rites of spreading her ashes and releasing her matter back into the world. For days, the jinn of Susan has been emancipated back into the world and I had been oblivious to this change.

I won’t visit Susan’s final resting place until almost 4 years later. I finally meet Susan’s ghost in the waning moments of my 30th year. Years ago, she gave me a small, smooth black stone and told me that when I was feeling anxious, needed something, or had a dream, I should hold and rub it to channel my thoughts, feelings and desires. I remembered this while I contemplated my Aunt in the garden and then go and find the stone buried deep in the bottom of my purse. Now, I use it to channel her and feel her presence and serenity with me as I wander. I hold it in my hand at the beginning of most days and it lies under my pillow most nights.

Read Part 16: The Lonely Hunters