I got there as it came to pass with my youngest brother whose ambivalences had also been transcended by who knows exactly what in what turns out to have been perfect phrasing so that I was able to be part of the organicity of his dying and having said my good bye the last time I had no need for him to look back no need for him to miss a step and for lack of different languaging the oft asked did he know you were there misses the point

I knew I was there
I was there
he waited

we three children our oldest brother biding his own sense went back to the precipice to the sideline of his dyingplace well into the dyingtime divide and sat with him sat with his shadow as it deflated and in the stillness you could decipher the sounds and when we left we knew

the come sit with him now call came at 4:52AM we piled into two cars and made the drive back to the The Villa
our father as would have been his wont took his leave precisely: justso we wouldn't have been there andyet nonetheless wouldn't have missed it

the night's work just completed the morning work not yet underway it was quiet when we got back to TheVilla where'd he'd lived the last five years a clearing in the perpetuity punctuated by empty laundry bins standing at attention along side the carts piled with clean linens which lined the long hall with its many doors open on either side into the multitude of rooms full of stories but not a soul was stirring and we seven strode down the pristine hall as if we might have been a wedding procession as if the waters had just been parted

and justthatquickly one becomes part of the bereaved family and justthatquickly becomes part of a complicated dance and justthatquickly gets catapulted along a trajectory well traveled allowing just the same for individual differences and it came to me to make the 1st call notifying our brother that our father had died

and not too much later I was only sorry not to have had wits enough or trust enough to have said our father art in heaven knowing our father would have in his notsoon to be inhabited grave rolled over

&justthatquicky we discovered it was sad but not tragic

he told this wonderful story of how when the expected call came in the dead of night he didn't know exactly what to do & how relieved he was he'd laid his clothes out because just like for the rest of us in the minute it seemed such an impossible feat to make sense of to contextualize the time is now summons to OurFather's deathbed and how he found himself simply&elegantly imagining what our OlderBrother would have done so he started the cars & as we gathered in the vestibule waiting to go he handed each of us a glass of juice

it's good there were the many it's good there was the plenty of family so that we none of us singly would have been thrust into deciding thrust into the dissembling&reassembling that enuses that is part of the multi faceted act of dying and it is meaningful and extraordinary that we four somehow came alone our spices left at each our own livingplaces so that homefires could would be kept burning and so that we were able to reconstruct the fabric of The Marcuse family into another whole, meanwhile Our Father was accepted at the university's department of human anatomy

and it is the multitude that is involved as it, the devolving, evolves
notification
the languaging of survived by in TheObituary as gargantuan a minefield as is 1stpew rights nevermind death certificate dispersal to the many interested parties
dismantling&archiving
notsomuch the estate which at this point is nonexistant since it transfers seemlessly to named beneficiaries, though we did travel en famille to TheLawyer & to TheFinancialAdvisor, but more poignantly his effects&belongings
laying to rest
there were no services in keeping with OurFather's staunch&ardent dislike of ritual nevermind his new job but at OurMother's behest we did celebrate a two-day secular shiva

it was an untold pleasure an amalgam of riches absent the ambient anxiety we all anticipated that we all dreaded absent overwhelming sadness absent an absence that we all foretold and so reminiscent of the memory of wholeness that we darednot hope for
we sat at the kitchen table around which there can be no life and over time drank 2 bottles of auchentoshan scotch and retold stories and recreated a history and totally missed OurMother's cue when she asked if we needed more scotch

it was with abiding sorrow that we took our leave and broke up the set

it's a long way back, going was so much more direct, now I have decisions to make once again coming back to a world that has no father
rather than capture it the dissolution his devolving in words I opted for yarn and a crochet hook hands to heart head bowed
what are you making they kept asking I was making nothing capturing instead a pattern the sum total of the randon acts that comprise a dying
the design is different for each of us each with our own marks to show &so there'll be no agreement on the epitaph

againthankfully we're of an age three...four...five...of us losing in the last month a parent andyet for the day in day out of it all there's a vast difference in the road we each traveled to arrive at the ways inwhich we will have celebrated the loss & incredibly unpredictable asit turned out the ways it was worn shared made available to others ornot
for all my words I have yet to capture the depth of it and perhaps it is just that ineffability which allows me license to share it without fear of breaching the personal&profoundly intimate details

I'm getting clearly how it is language may have steered me in the wrong direction or may have obfuscated handily the point of being there which I had been so fussy about it was not somuch to be part of his dying but moreso to participate in my living to understand to incorporate to embrace a father's dying--my father's dying--as an integral part of any child's living, and fact is I've learned before no matter the soundness of the reasons in the minute for not being there in the long run they don't withstand the test of time

the winter rains are back glad I wasn't seduced by the touch of faux spring to be in the garden ahead of it's time and I can't say it's unwelcome more befitting the ambient gentle sadness I'm left with a sadness that feels like a calmness a peacefulness a way of being for the nonce that precludes an ability to rush to be rushed to hurry along so glad the sadness the tenderness for a better way of saying it was not preempted by anxiety by cowardess by any other name anger or broken teeth & yesterday's stale crusts of bread

he died all bones and my dreams are full of reconstruction of deconstruction of outer converings over the course of time slipping away leaving only the barest outline yet he left for us on his face the hint the precursor of one of his grins and I could hear his laughter again once his bones were silent
it was not a peaceful death yet he died in peace and just the same it had not been a peaceful life and he would be the last to say he lived in peace but I know he'd do it all again inaflash

he was so big in so many ways so immovable so fundamental so much as it turns out instrumental in me not being but becoming me that it is hard to imagine as in it misses the point to say he is gone and closer to the truth--his rolling over in his not soon to be inhabited grave notwithstanding and how I know equally notwithstanding--to say it was only the flesh he gave up and his indomitable spirit in keeping with the spirit (sic) of things did not degrade but became mc2 andso there is light after death

and our mother stepped up our mother was in the best sense and with impeccable taste and timing center stage conductor choreographer glue grain of sand cum pearl kvelling swelling holding to as opposed to fast or steady our mother stepped up and with impeccable taste&timing stood her watch our mother stepped up and in the best sense and with impeccable taste and timing mothered us steady as we went through the shoals amazingly there were no foul winds which is not to say there are none

amazingly there were no ghosts which is not to say there are none

And yet there is an abiding...thumbing through the words...vulnerability sadness not melancholy tenderness wistfulness...tender wistfulness longing yearning I think of stretching reaching, I'm talking here about time and space, shifting altering changing redoing renewing the landscape of my heart and by default the world as I live in it not to mention of course a different perspective since the wheel has turned

and nine months later how...timely fitting...in the course of events that I'm off to the doctor to be cleared for full duty

I find the absence of anxiety a fabulous portend
abe gezunst!

and my physical therapist called the follow up call the promised follow up call to see how I was doing to make sure things were going okay and as these things fall out...our work well done... it is, and the twinge was as all good twinges are full fledged but as is their course dissipating

and in the background faux spring just come and gone it is raining again and we those of us who know these things don't need no stinking weatherman or computer models to tell us these rains the river won't host without breaking the bank

2/18
The following stages of particular significance have occurred or are expected to occur: flood stage Russian River at Guerneville Bridge:

Guerneville Bridge 11 am stage 35.6 ft near crest at present time forecast to fall below flood stage early Thursday morning then forecast to fall below monitor stage late Thursday morning then forecast to recede to near 28.0 ft near noon Thursday
monitor stage 29.0 ft, flood stage 32.0 ft

and for all the hooha it was simply a perfect example of what flood plains are were expected to be and why we are glad to have Floating Holidays

"...Funny thing floodtimes...People flock somehow like geeseorsheep ormaybe justlike people alwaysdid without my having noticed before...took me bysurprise atfirst, but I noticed, afteratime, therewas always a crowd gathered around that spot on the road which yesterday had no particular meaning & today meant 36feet at TheGuernevilleBridge, which meant agood 5feet of water on the road for agood piece, that meant not even the drunk ones--who surely think they can--drive across, which meant their partners didn'teven take them seriously when they startedup with eachother about hellyesman, damnright this rig can make it! Which meant we were an island..."

"...And people walked twothreefour times a day, hell sometimes onceanhour to that spot which isthe edge ofthe world nowthat the river's up. I guess there's alwaysgot tobe a place to go, aplace where we come together without a lot of fuss&bother. A place, where we can meet closeup but fromthedistance of regular strangers who overtime come to know something about one another that connects us, but doesn't bind. A place where we can talkabout just this&that. Though ofcourse people mostly talked about what the river was doing. Juststanding there asif they were sittingonbenches, looking down at the waves and talking...".

and as these things went I missed couldn't make the doctor's appointment but it was by that time a mere formality the three months of ttwa temporary transfer of work assignment already up so I got dispensation by phone are you sure are you sure are you sure she kept asking and I was no fuss no muss

and the first week back to work back to real nursing behind me I'm glad

and after all is said&done what's gone missing is a life'sworth of ambientanxiety that seems to have dissipated with my father's perfect death what a perfect 2ndchance

I'll be sworn in as these things come full circle my father rolling in his not soon to be inhabited grave notwithstanding on the ninth of march at 8 o'clock in the morning, wow meanwhile in the background one can only wonder--if there really is liberty and justice for all and if as they say the constitution protects everyone--why it is that there is all this unseemly ahoo about same gender marriage and how much a vote is worth or youcanbet it'sthe republicanswho support ralphnader they have everything to gain & nothing to lose unlike the rest of us

nine months later tells the whole story
in the end or the beginning the metaphors the lessons the ways there are of interacting with ones passions remain the same, showing up or not with glee or not with ambient anxiety or not with expectations and chatter or not with litany&refrains or not
today was a perfect day as it turns out to get back in the water not that the surf was perfect but it was all perfectly imperfect perfectly not too crowded or too hot not too sunny or too cold not too windy & I was disparately(sic) happy

2day rides again
the wonderful irony is that my shoulder ofcourse isnot the strongest part of my get together nor necessarily upto snuff yet but it surely is themost stable thankyouverymuch & bows to the goodohsocutedoctor not to mention The incredblykind&thoughtfulNurse who made it all bearable & myphysicaltherapist

I slept like a rock sinking to the bottom of the sea waves notwithstanding

since I'd opted not to go atall the day before I think solotango was flaggergasted at my total lackof prevaricating yesterday–it wasn't even about how desparate are you (to get in the water) but simply how perfectly ready I was

brain pan sink holes capture my imagination again ha there it is simple as that the path of least resistance and the train ohmygod of thoughts follows falls into the well worn groove and now back at work it's of course the back at work pomp&circumstance potpourri&worry and for all of it the short version is once again robert pirsig's gumption traps and it bemuses me that worrying is simply a habit like nailbiting with a nature abhorring a vaccuum back so that ofcourse worries are a perfect first line filler and therein lies the beauty of changing ones mind

or maybe it's about how one uses time and it's interesting to note that one can hijack themselves evenmore readily than the nextguy can or following the metaphor amazing how easily we derail and I think of how our own impatience snapped us in the ass by the end of the day asin what went around came back around and those of us who had to come back yetanother day were well rewarded for having dumped the buffer before comingback through the door
I'm putinmindof the funny notsofunny line sorry I hurt your feelings I was aiming for your balls

he said to me--this after I'd offered him some help & he not liking its form tellingme to get out of his space & later my having said wow that had been not only unpleasant but totally unnecessary--I wish you would relate to me more on a feeling level he a colleague of mine who goes from intellect to anger and back without much variation he who tolerates little ambiguity disagreements even less and his own feelings not at all
the irony was standing in front of him I had no idea what he meant noidea how that would look

the wisdom seems to be in less is more different than not having anything to say or saying only nice things but in the moderation of it all with a kindness back I think again of membranes&osmolarity and gradients and the sucking sound of humiliation and powerlessness in the face of power and the venue nevermind the value of choice and she thanked me--in the face of banging on the desk repeating her I have the right to go outside mantra and my having said eversoquietly canIask what really is going on--for being the first one to ask

so I get some small sense of what missing ones voices must be like, anxiety an old standby loyal the same way ones fix or bottle is, a thing always to be counted on when all else fails you and lookingover my shoulder I worry (sic) that spot where it used to be
and so we were talking about desolation the place and the feeling and how as a feeling it evoked loneliness and bleakness and how for me as a place it the grand empitness of it all evoked possibility, and the virgo mutable pollyanna rides again drinking lemonade