You Life Was the Light of the World

Your death overshadows your life to me now
I try to remember your face
Your smile
Your laugh
The rasp of your annoyance when I would joke at you in fun
The tears you’d cry when family members died
And the gasps of joy when you would be surprised on your birthday party we threw every year

I just see the blood now
There was blood everywhere after you fell
On you
On the floor
On our clothes
I felt your chest cave in under my palms
I look at my hands often
At what they did when I tired to save your life
Those same hands, you’d grab them when I was sad
and stroke your fingers against my knuckles
The same voice that called my name rasped in your death throes
And the same blue eyes that twinkled from the candles at Sunday mass rolled to the back of your head in the midst of your suffering

You were a prisoner in your own body for a brief moment
Unaware of a world of hurt around you
While we frantically yelled and screamed your name
Did you hear us?
Did you try to call back?

When you fell, you smashed your head violently against the door
Your neck was broken and your body was twisted
The flesh of your forehead peeled like an orange and it gushed like the jets of the pool you’d sit by on a hot summer day
The air smelled like iron and shit
I cradled you in my lap and cried into your face
I was covered in your blood
I tried to save you but I was drunk
I’m always drunk
I chose alcohol instead of sitting beside you

Sometimes that’s all you wanted
You were simple, and found joy in simple things
You didn’t need jewels or money
You just wanted someone to sit with you
To talk with you
To be with you
When you needed me most I let you down
It was the one time I couldn’t fail
I’ve failed you so many other times
I would cave into my hurtful instincts often
And I know I would hurt your heart with the things I would say
Now I live in a world of wounds, forever pining after a forgiveness I can never reach

I regret all of our arguments
Of the times I left you so mad you couldn’t talk
I would be too proud to apologize
Now I can only beg to the sky you ascended to
or call to the ground you’re covered in
hoping you can still hear me

You were sitting right there
A pane of glass separating the two of us for a final conscious time
You were crumpled on the ground like the can of Busch I dropped to crawl to you
Your eyes looked at nothing
But they said everything
You love me
I love you

Now you’re bones lay on the hill side across town
I saw when they lowered you’re body in the ground
I saw my mother and father weep like never before
Their suffering was inconsolable
The void you left was too empty
And the manner of your death too tragic and too cruel
Everybody who was there that day changed for the worse

We watched pictures of you on a tv screen at your reception
They showed you young and old
Smiling and laughing
Surrounded by countless other dead people
The pictures tried to tell the story of who you were
They didn’t capture your life, though
They just amplified your loss
You were the most important person in my life
The one who loved unconditionally, even when I was wrong and drunk and weak
You didn’t choose to die that day
Or die in the way that you did
But since you were always so stubborn, you stepped into it’s path anyway

Your life was the light of the world
After you died, distances grew
Friendships ended
Those who remain are drowning in grief
You held more people together then you realized
So many of us took you for granted
And we’re the poorer for it

Blood oozed from your mouth from ragged coughs, and you wheezed a noise out of nightmares
When I tried to save you, the chest compressions broke your ribs and pierced your lungs
I felt the crunch reverberating through my body
I can never forget that feeling
Or sounds of the gurgles that came out of your mouth where the soft croon of your voice once was

I should’ve caught you before you hit the ground
Before you broke yourself upon the floor
I have to live with it forever in my dreams
I see it almost every night
Some times I catch you
Most times you fall
My heart is filled with a failure that you will never know

You were a source of immense comfort
Once, I got into car accident
I was fine physically, but I was upset and scared and worried
I came home, and saw you sitting in the little chair you always sat in
I didn’t say anything, I just knelt down and put my head in your lap and cried
I cried from fear, and from hurt
I just wanted to feel close to you
You didn’t say anything either
You held me close and stroked my hair
You are equal parts agony and ecstasy when you are brought up
Your name brings unfathomable joy one second, and immense despair the next 
When we gather to talk about you, we usually end up crying
You never wanted us to cry for you when you were gone
But we let you down again and again


They buried you next to grandpa, who died in the 80s before I was born
I would never know him like I knew you
I knew you the day I opened my eyes for the first time
And I knew you the last moment you closed yours
I knew just pictures of him, though
I knew that he was cold to you
He was a man of contradictions and unhealthy passions
Yet you never had a bad thing to say about him
Even though we knew the worst of him
He was crushed by lumber on his birthday while at work
In a morbid way, you both have a violent death in common
You found more things in common in death then you did in life with him

Your graves are side by side, on the side of the hill facing the view of the San Gabriel Valley
When we would come here to visit him, we would joke that you would have the best view in the graveyard when you finally died
We don’t smile at that joke anymore
Now I just sit in the grass, and face the view you see everyday

We bring you two flowers when we can
People would bring you flowers all the time when you were alive
You loved the attention
But you hated having to find vases for them
The water would stagnate and the flowers wilt
But the meaning was always there
You were always there
You were a good person
A kind person
A beautiful person
You deserved flowers everyday

You loved roses and tulips best
When I see them now, in gardens or on other graves, I try to picture the best of you
The you that smiled at me when I’d come home from work
Who would laugh and joke and trade jabs with my father
You, in your little chair, with your little blanket and your little mug of coffee

I just see the worst version of you, now
The broken you
The bloody you
It’s ingrained in my mind, burnt and scarred into the worst memory of my life
I know that’s not what you want
But I can’t help it
You had to have been in my shoes at the time
I would have gladly been in yours
You deserved so much more
Your death was wrong and brutal and cruel
How could one of the best of people die in such a horrible way?

If your life was the light of the world, then your death had dimmed it all around of us
You always wanted to be remembered for the beautiful life you lived
Your death overshadows your life to me now

I’m sorry
I’m so, so sorry nana
I wish you were still here
Forgive me
Forgive me
Forgive me