Connecticut.

I was nineteen and knew it all
but Death wasn't real yet.
She passed while I was on my way
from Albany to say goodbye.
Uncle Marty called, said they'd wait
to move the body until I arrived.
It seemed kind of them.

When I got there the rest of the family
had already found their respective sources
of consolation, be it a story from years gone by
a comfortable corner of a couch, or a drink.
I made my way to the guest room
where she'd been fighting for her last breaths
having long been freed from her final demons.
Her jaw sagged low, her mouth wide open.
The undertaker's wire would fix that.
Aunt Ronnie was sitting next to the bed
holding her hand that had looked like wax
for the past ten years of her life.
She was ready.

I wish I could say I cried, but I didn't.
It had been a merciful release.
And to tell you the truth
she looked so much more at peace
in that reclined position
than she did at the wake
where I didn't cry, either.

Carmen's final statement was the best of her lifetime.
She arranged to be buried on a grassy knoll
near some tall pines in a secluded Connecticut cemetery
near my uncle's house instead of next to my grandfather
in the plot he'd bought in the Adirondacks.
The bottle, the beatings, and the mistresses had been
punishment enough for her. She didn't want to rot
next to that miserable man forever.
I can still hear her dry cackle when I think about it.

My father said he'd be buried next to Charles Senior instead.
Some sons don't know when to see the man for the monster.
Let them.

I wouldn't have much nice to say in the way of a eulogy.
The tears would come that time, but for different reasons.
Let them as well.

The worst deaths occur before the heart stops beating.
I'm twenty-five now and know that much
if nothing else.