Dancing With The Darkest Muse...

Autumn was my mother’s favorite season. She loved the changing colors of the leaves and the crisp Fall air. She decorated her house with pumpkins, gourds and Indian corn. Chrysanthemums were her favorite flowers. And Thanksgiving was her favorite holiday because, every so often, her birthday would fall on that day. She loved this time of year.

Fifteen years ago today, I received a phone call in the early morning hours telling me that my mother was dead. It was exactly one month shy of her sixty-first birthday. I had talked to her just a few hours earlier, before going to bed, as was our nightly habit. She had been laughing and joking with my husband about how cold the weather had turned. There was a running joke between them because she always claimed our house felt like a refrigerator. When she called that night, she asked him what we were doing and he gave her his standard reply, “We’re making ice cubes.”

And a few hours later, without warning, she was gone.

It’s still difficult for me, even after all these years, to describe those first few days. It’s as though the events were viewed through a lens that kept zooming in and out of focus. I was an adult at the time and had been married for nine years. But on receiving the news of her death, I felt as if the umbilical cord had just that instant been severed. I felt unplugged, disconnected and, for the first time in my life, I felt totally alone, even though I was surrounded by friends and family.

I remember the drive to the hospital to join my family and view my mother’s body. I remember going back to her house where more family and friends gathered. Phone calls were made. Food and flowers were delivered. I went to the funeral home and made arrangements. But for that entire segment of time my mind felt numb. I couldn’t think further than the next task at hand and, through it all, I could hear her voice in my head telling me what needed to be done next.

You see, she was more than just my mother. I was her only child and we were extremely close. She was my best friend, my mentor, my confidant, my confessor. I felt lost without her. And, from the time of her death until the day after her funeral, I was operating solely on auto pilot. Because, if I let myself stop and think and feel, I was afraid I would break down and never be able to get back up again.

That was a long, cold Winter. I remember fluctuating between numbness and disconnection to grief and an almost manic compulsion to express myself through my writing. I would sit all day with notebook and pen in hand, and stay at my keyboard late into the night. Writing became my therapy. Rather than dwelling and wallowing in my grief and self-pity, I channeled all of my thoughts and emotions into my work, pouring them out onto the page. Ironically, I was at my most productive during those dark months and turned out some of my best writing. I sold three articles almost back to back. I wrote some of my darkest fiction and most philosophical essays. The bulk of the poems in my poetry collection, Dancing With The Darkest Muse: On the Death of Love and the Love of Death, were also penned that Winter.

In short, writing kept me going. It kept me sane. It helped me overcome the darkest time in my life and helped me to cope with my loss while learning to understand myself more deeply. It enabled me to grieve.

Today as I remember my mother, her life and her death, I am grateful to her for the life that she gave me. I am grateful to her for instilling in me a love of books and a love of reading. I am grateful to her for encouraging me to write and for all of her support along the way. I am grateful to have had her in my life, even though it was for far too short a time.

The following essay is one of the pieces I wrote during that time and the original version first appeared in Morbid Curiosity Issue #5 in 2001. While re-reading it this morning, I felt it
appropriate to the day.

So, Momma, this one’s for you.


The Presence Of Death by Kelly Gunter Atlas

Death is as familiar to my family as life, as intimate as an embrace. It’s walked among us for as long as I can remember, as integral a part of us as an elder relation one sees at every family gathering. We do not fear it, although we mourn our losses deeply. But we are trained from birth to receive it with hospitality upon its arrival, as we would any visitor, and to respectfully acknowledge it as the natural progression of life.

One of my earliest memories is of sitting vigil at my great-uncle’s deathbed. I couldn’t have been more than five. It was the middle of the night, and the entire family was gathered in his small apartment, three generations of us, talking with him, joking about the good old days. His skin had turned a sickly yellow and his face was bloated from the liver disease. But he was still our family and we loved him. He was one of us and we were there until the end.

There were many deaths and funerals while I was growing up and we attended every one, no matter how far we had to travel. Because, you see, family means everything to us. Aunts and uncles are extensions of our parents; cousins, no matter how many times removed, are raised like siblings. We are spoon fed the stories of our ancestors and they feel as familiar to us as if they had taken place before our very eyes.

As children, my cousins and I played among the tombstones of the old cemetery across the road from my uncle’s house. The stone angels watched over us, the mausoleums provided shade in the heat of summer, and the names on the headstones became as familiar to us as our own. We knew no fear in that place. It was as natural to us as the school playground is to other children.

When I was small, my mother heard me having a conversation in my bedroom. She knew we were alone in the house, so she came back to check on me. She asked who I was talking to and I told her, without hesitation, “Grandpa.” I even showed her the picture of her father in the hallway. But my grandfather died two years before I was born.

My cousin also received visits from our grandfather when she was a child. We never thought there was anything strange in that. After all, one of my cousins still had conversations with his dead brother. Another relative’s husband had shown her where he kept his will after he died. And my great-grandmother, even though she had been dead for years, held my grandmother’s hand during difficult times.

My mother dreamed her father’s passing before it occurred, just as I dreamed hers. There was no time to say goodbye or be with him when his time came and, sadly, I found myself in the same situation. She, like her father, suffered a sudden heart attack and was gone before I could reach the hospital. She, as well as others, sat up with his body all night at the funeral home, never leaving his side. I was denied this ritual because times and rules have changed, and I feel cheated because of it. It is part of our process. It brings closure and eases loss. We believe the bodies of the dead should be treated with respect. To us, they are not merely empty shells to be discarded as quickly as possible before decay sets in. They are who and where we come from. Their cells hold the memories of our origins, our genetic make-up, our connections to one another.

Too many people in this day and age not only fear death, they fear the dead. They distance themselves from the experience, as if to deny their own mortality. Why shun the hand I clung to only yesterday, simply because it has grown cold and still? Is it not the same hand of the woman who bore me, who dried my tears and quieted my childhood fears? Is it not the same hand that braided my hair with ribbons when I was small and held me safe in a crowd of strangers? The only difference is that it no longer returns my grip. Why feel reluctant to kiss the cheek I’ve kissed a million times? The warmth may be gone and the face may now lie in repose, but it is the same cheek I’ve seen wrinkled with smiles and softened by love all of my life.

Death was once respected. When someone passed away, clocks were stopped because time has no meaning during the season of death. Mirrors were covered because vanity has no place in the presence of death. When a funeral procession passed by, people stopped and lowered their heads. Men removed their hats in a show of respect for both the dead and the family they left behind.

Death is an aspect of life. It is only a cycle, like birth. The wheel turns, the cycle shifts, yet we all go on. We are changed yet we remain the same. They may leave us in body, but they are still with us in mind and spirit.

My family is a very old and proud family. Our lineage has been traced back to 1160 AD. Descended from Viking conquerors, Celtic mystics, Highland warriors and Cherokee braves, we are a clannish, tribal lot. We take care of our own and our strength flows from this. Tradition pumps through our hearts, as old as time, and we take our rites and responsibilities seriously. Death is a sacred occasion, like birth, and we celebrate it accordingly. We preside at the deathbed and hold our loved ones’ hands as they pass; we sit vigil over our dead until the time comes to bury them; we celebrate their life with food, drink and laughter and retell the stories of their lives for generations. And we continue to speak to them after they’re gone, because they are never far from us and are always
there when we need them most. They make their presence known to us in various ways and they watch over and communicate with our children.

Death continues to walk among us, as our lives ebb and flow through its constant and ever vigilant presence. It is our constant companion, the connecting thread, as are the loved ones who have gone on before us.