Thio Ari died. I don’t understand the details, the language barrier, the clutter of my memory, I was told he was in ill health. I was told broken hip, I was told maybe cancer, maybe his lungs, over the years. Forgotten. Because I thought he would be there the next time I saw him. But he died, and it sounds like complications from a stroke he had recently. That he couldn’t talk, that he was trapped, and he went. Maybe overnight. Maybe he closed his eyes at some point when no one was looking and a nurse, an orderly, noticed he was gone. Maybe he had company and he was just exhausted waiting for them to leave the room so he could let go without any fanfare or hysteria.
He was my mother’s first cousin. When I was young, he pulled me aside and toured Athens with me, talked to me about Hellenism vs modern Greeks etc. How one thing was not the same as the other and to know the difference between national and ethnic pride. He taught me the legacy of things and how to share it, not horde it for yourself.
69. and I’m right there, 50, and it slams me, bowls me over, right in the middle of the day. Io’s lifetime and that’s it. relive everything I’ve had with them, then gone. And I can’t fathom it, I can’t accept it. I will not die, you will not die, she will not die, we will not grow old, we will remain timeless, and it’s a lie, it’s a lie, it’s a lie. I have yet to see it. yes, wrinkles around the eyes, greys in the beard, slightly at the temple, but the skin, the skin still supple.
But it will happen, it will happen because time has always been the enemy, and I cannot stave it off, I do not want to die but I know I have to. And I don’t know how I want to die, even if it’s, ok, I go to sleep, do I want to know it’s the last time? Do I want to witness it? is it better sudden? but then, is everything in place for them? For her? Will they be ok? When will I know they’ll be ok? When I do know, will that be the time? I can never relax, I cannot die, she cannot die, over and over, you will not die, you must die.
