THE FINAL TRUTH

I had seen dead mice, dead raccoons, swallows and starlings bonked against glass windows and fallen in the garden. I saw the decapitated head of a cow, once. A prop for a horror movie. One of the guys on set said, Pssst. Heh heh. Check this out, grasping the cow’s head by the scruff between its ears and lifting it up, still dripping, from a five-gallon bucket.

Having gone west through my twenties, I had been informed of faraway deaths by phone. Grandma Joe had died; Grampa Paterson had died; Grampa Joe had died. My Grandma Paterson was the last to go. My mother dropped her phone on the hospital bed without hanging up.

Mom? Mom, I’d heard her say. Mom, I love you…I’m here…get the doctor… Mom…

I knew death was Out There, but I didn’t know it. Death was never personal until a team of emergency room