Guilty as charged

I long to reach out and touch you, Niko. Buster sits on the side of the bathtub observing the bubbles with a golden gleam in his cat eyes. He has white fur that curls from his ears and long whiskers. I adore him. Sometimes I think he is Niko reincarnated to console me and Cholo. I don’t really believe this, but somehow the thought comforts me. When he licks Cholo’s ears, I can’t help but think of the way Nik cleaned them out and playfully bit them.
I plod along, sometimes in my bulletproof led suit that protects and isolates me at the same time. I have broad shoulders that bare the weight grudgingly. Sometimes it is hard to get out of bed, and sometimes I envision a gun in my hand with one bullet that would put me out of my misery.
But that, I think, would be cheating. And the moment, glancingly brief, darts away when I see Buster cuddle on the couch next to Cholo or when I force myself outside to ride a horse.
Life is like that. The scenes keep changing. And I still haven’t left my mark. Haven’t finished, much less sold, the book to be or saved the world. Shit, I couldn’t even save my own son, what makes me think I can accomplish anything of note?
Today I feel like flour in a sifter. The hot bath smoothed out the tension but left my skin wrinkled. Two flies hound me, landing on the computer screen, my arm, my fedora. Three roses in mixed stages of their blossom remind me that life, is indeed, fleeting and can be oh so sweet yet riddled with thorns.
A part of me believes that something grand must be on my horizon, that God has not forsaken me and that I have a purpose. The committee that lives in my head charges into battle, screaming obscenities and laughing at my hopes and dreams. They call me a loser, a liar and a hypocrite. I bow my head to their accusations. Stand in front of my mirror with a towel wrapped around my thick hair. My reflection amuses me. Who is this sad woman with the red blotches on her right cheek, the somber blue eyes lined in pain and the stained teeth? What happened to my youth?
Guilty as charged, I say. I am, after all, human.

Something in the air smells a little like salvation

Perhaps the rain has washed away all sins
And flowers will bloom to cover the scars

But its hard to give a dam
To focus
To create…who will be my salvation?
They took a blood sample this morning
And I thought,
Why do I still get to bleed while my son
Is ashes in the wet garden?

His garden
Where everything seems to bloom and grow
Tall and strong

I tell the weeds to move along
And the rain, hopefully dumping buckets of my salvation into the ground
Where I can soak it up like a hungry Iris
And learn to live without his smile.

The Jet Ski

Nik begged me to rent a jet ski. I didn’t like them, and I knew he would want me to let him drive it once we ventured out into the lake. I told him we could rent a kayak or a canoe, a sailboat or I’d pay for him to go parasailing. But he only wanted to go out on the jet-ski, and so, we didn’t do anything.

Last week I had the opportunity to ride on a jet-ski. It sounded better than working or cutting wood, so I said, sure. Monique, Jeannie and I went from City Beach to Priest River. The jet-ski felt like riding on the back of a motorcycle on water and made me feel free. The water fizzled like soda pop and 1,000 rainbows arced behind us like magic. Jeannie got it up to 35 mph (she said it can do 70) and we bounced over the waves like a tennis ball. It was amazing.

We stopped and had lunch at Willow Bay, and Jeannie informed me that when we got back to the beach, I was to ride the jet-ski (adding that she has only dumped it once).

But I didn’t want to drive the damn thing. All I could think of was Nik. Why didn’t I take Nik out on one when I had the chance? I could have told him we would go, but only I could drive it because he was too young. We would have had a blast.

By the time we returned to the beachhead, I had made up my mind to give it a whirl. Jeannie showed me how to operate it and how to get back on if I crashed. I decided not to crash. I also decided to drive it for Nik.

Jeannie pushed me off and I started it up. We lurched past the bouys and then, I cranked up the gas. I skipped over the water like a flat rock, jumping over waves and wakes. I headed toward Hope, laughing and crying at the same time.

Nik and I got it up to 35 mph. We made a big circle and looped our way back to the beach. We didn’t put on the brake and we didn’t dump it in the water. Jeannie waved me in, and I brought it to shore. She jumped on the back, and we drove it back to the dock, loaded it on the trailer, and headed home.

Thank-you Nik for giving me the courage to drive the jet-ski. I miss you, every day.

Ashes

How can you be gone? You were so beautiful. So vitally alive. A strong presence. And now, all that remains is ashes in a box and a hole in my heart that sometimes threatens to consume me.

Our lives are as weak as paper burning

Picture this: paper burning. Flames lick the edges. They curl, brown, and peal away like dead skin. Smoke saturates, encompasses and crowns the air. Black appears, consumes and eats the white, while the yellow fire grows with power, grins triumphantly in gold and laughs in red/orange/crimson.

Picture this: the car misses the turn and leaves the road, overturning. Everything is flying, the boy behind the wheel, the bikes in the back, the cell phone that I never find. Tumbling, tossing, flying momentarily with eerie grace. Smacking the tree, eating the ground; the tree sheers and cries with anguish. The boy dies with the night and the bright stars as his only witness.

The wheels spin and then, all is silence.

Our lives are as weak as paper burning. One snow capped Iris blooms in his garden, like a lost angel, and baby blue swallows sing a hungry song from the bird-house. I long to look in, to see them in their innocence. I satisfy myself with sitting on the snowboard bench, witnessing the proud parents dance, watching them bring food to their young.

Charlotte's Web

Muffled in memories, I walk my brain to the Panida, where DaNae and Nik Aguirre, the youngest goslings in “Charlotte’s Web” made their debut as “Petunia” and “Buster.” Garbed in soft yellow cloth and bright puddle boots, they marched across the stage in a tight train of feathers.

I rewind the video and watch the play with fresh eyes. DaNae, now 22, still loves the theater and will make another debut in a play at the Panida in October, while her younger brother, Nik, died in a car accident a day before his 18th birthday.

The tape rolls on, and the goslings scamper across the stage. They fall like a stack of dominoes, and the mother goose swings each one up and they call out their name. “Petunia,” DaNae says, grinning triumphantly. Buster, in typical Nik fashion, scoots backwards on his bottom away from his parent. She captures him and the audience laughs. “Buster,” Nik shouts. The audience claps.

Bogged Down

The rain and mud didn’t detour me from trying out my new chainsaw. And when Big Blue high centered on a hidden stump I finished the job by burying three of her wheels into the bog.

I used to plow the driveway out with an ATV, and got it stuck at least once a year. Niko would always come out and help dig me out. He’d tell me to go inside and take a break. When a neighbor slid into the ditch, Niko would go out into the dark and shovel them out. He could be difficult sometimes, but he had a big heart and never grumbled at having to rescue me or some stranger. And he never asked for nor expected any compensation. He did it because he wanted to.

But Nik wasn’t here to unstick me this time, so I called my brother, Rex. And like Nik, he came with a smile, a shovel, and the tools to help me. Plus, he reminded me of the time he had gotten stuck in the backyard, assuring me I wasn’t the only person to find themselves in such a muddy situation.

I’m glad I have family and friends to help me through the bogs.

We miss you, Nik. Every day.