Headstone III
by Jane Hammons
Looks like a dead dog on the highway. Our father's voice as near a scream as a growl can get. This is his way of saying Johnny's dying get here quick.
The ebb and flow of dialysis hollowed out sockets your eyes still warm and golden even now. My only brother. Frantic flesh clings to bone. Your wife and children our mother father step-mother step-father sisters friends from work and faraway childhood. Some cousins aunts and uncles. All here. Oxygen blood and drugs measured doses of life. Mainlining the good stuff. Your joke.
Everyone waiting waiting rooms overflow in palliative care where the end so near nurses shrug off requests to clean the bathroom change the sheets open a window give us some air.
Our children some barely crawling cross your lap tangled in tubes and wires. Onto their heads and arms you Dutch rub and Indian burn painful red tattoos initiating them before you go into a family that mistakes pain for affection. Wide-eyed surprise and hurt they look for explanation. Your daughter sweet teen whispers Daddy don't mean harm into their tiny seashell ears.
Outside the window the Trinity flows. Drunk aunt takes older children to ride the little train near the Ft. Worth Zoo. Then for a hotel swim. Late at night you shush our nervous chat. Listen. Elephant roar and monkey scream. My husband glassy-eyed addict says I hear it claiming your hallucinations as his own.
You live too long unexpectedly and weeks later die at home. The howling quiets the Trinity flows. Your daughter carries your ashes everywhere she goes.
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Author's Note
For Johnny, my brother, who died 16 years ago today
Other stories by Jane Hammons
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Wow, Jane. The voice in this, the language, the structure, it all fits so well, too well - I felt so much reading through this, I was there, I experienced it all. *
Powerful. Form & function perfectly matched. Very well done. *
Wow - really powerful & beautifully told *
The emotions are held at bay, like roadside bombs.
"Wide-eyed surprise and hurt they look for explanation."
Oh, Jane...
fav
Jane, another gem to place on your growing cairn. This so elegaic, so heart-breaking. You've managed to capture an entire family and it's history in such a small space. Peace *
the ending is perfect. I live what Jim says, roadside bombs. How you hold back. its all there. powerhouse.
Outside the window the Trinity flows. Drunk aunt takes older children to ride the little train near the Ft. Worth Zoo. Then for a hotel swim. Late at night you shush our nervous chat. Listen. Elephant roar and monkey scream. My husband glassy-eyed addict says I hear it claiming your hallucinations as his own.""
There needs to be a fav upgrade to accomodate this one.
This is amazing. "Claiming your hallucinations as his own" one of the best phrases I've seen. *
Thanks you all. It was difficult to pare down the emotion in this one, and it is really gratifying to have your response.
Well crafted: characters and situation; stimulating thoughts and emotions; choice of details and descriptions; written tight as a drum with very expressive language.
Jeeze, Jane. "You live too long unexpectedly and weeks later die at home. The howling quiets the Trinity flows. Your daughter carries your ashes everywhere she goes."
This is is heart wrenching and goes so deep. I'm thinking your brother is so very proud of you. . .faves, many faves.
Powerful last line.
Oh, Jane. You can really stun me.
*
Deeply moving, very strong, fantastic form and flow and restraint and imagery.
Lots to admire here, like the jarring contrast between frantic clinging flesh and seashell ears. "You live too long unexpectedly and weeks later die at home" - what a sentence! Powerful.
Jane, this was outstanding!!! Love, loved this!!!*****
Powerful and stark, raving real. *
Heartbreaking, amazingly spare.
*
Heart breaking without being maudlin. Love it!
Tragic and beautiful.
Powerful, moving. The ashes carried everywhere.
This is amazing! So, so intense and beautifully written. *
Beautifully-heartbreakingly sad. I've lived through this experience as a close family member at the hospital, not as the one dying obviously. You've got so much of the experience just right. Interesting choice to do second person from the pov of the soon to be deceased.
gosh, the flow in this piece is breathtaking. thunder, jane, and lightning, and a bolt at the end.
Thanks to all of you for reading and commenting on this.
I was out of town and away from access this past week, and just had a chance to read this amazing piece, Jane. Wonderful and moving work.
"Outside the window the Trinity flows. Drunk aunt takes older children to ride the little train near the Ft. Worth Zoo. Then for a hotel swim. Late at night you shush our nervous chat. Listen. Elephant roar and monkey scream. My husband glassy-eyed addict says I hear it claiming your hallucinations as his own."
*
Jane, this is so good. Form and phrasing and seashell ears. *
Brave writing. Awesome ending.