Bye Mom. Hi Mom.

I held my mom Monday.

After Jen picked her up last week, she tucked her in her office closet, wrapped in my Pendleton towel, in the Arlington Hardware bag I gave her.

We met up last week so I could give her the pottery vase I bought in Vegas last year when I helped my little sister pack up her house—her life.

Jen didn’t want her kittens to get into Mama, and she couldn’t handle opening the cardboard box to see her in rubble.

On our way to Pendleton, we stopped by the SargeRanch and visited. Jen had already left with her grands to deliver them back to their parents, but she turned around to visit with us. Caden picked up Kaylee, and they stopped by. Andy had come home from a morning job. Colsen had the day off; he called Nikki so we could say hi. Then Grace came home for lunch, too.

This whole scene describes my family. We love to be with each other.

But damn, nine months ago, you would have thought from my journal entries that my family was crazy enmeshed. That was the story I had to tell so I could individuate myself. Not a pretty story, but mine.

I asked Jen where Mom was, and she brought her out to the kitchen table. Iva had wandered in with us, and I opened the cardboard box.

I mean, come on. Brookside could have at least put her in a more becoming container.

I opened the box, and there my mother was. A plastic bag full of rubble.

I don’t remember Catherine or Fred’s ashes being so rubbly—more ash.

Jen and I sobbed.

I wanted to do a magic trick to put this rubble back into my mama, but I don’t know any magic tricks.

Jen let out a sob.

We stuffed her gently into the pottery vase and put the lid on, then placed her back into the towel wrap. And back she went into the closet, away from the kittens.

Back out we went to visit with everyone.

I wanted to stay with her.

I wanted to lie down in the field of grass that she liked sitting in and put her ashes on my chest. Just to feel her.

What a fucking trip.

My mom’s ashes slam up against my living memories, and the biggest mindfuck occurs…over and over and over and over.

This is real.

This can’t be real.

She was just here. I just kissed her face, and she looked into my eyes.

Bye, Mom.

Hi, Mom.

Where are you?

You’re here. There. Everywhere.

The unknown of where you are is maddening.

I used to be able to track you on my phone. I knew your whereabouts. I could call you, and you’d answer. I could make a plan to meet you, and we’d hug and kiss and live together in the moment.

Now, where are you?

Your body is in Jen’s closet, but you are somewhere.

And what is you?

You are more than your body. You are consciousness, so can’t I connect with you still?

Surely you are still thinking of me. Of your #1 daughter and #3 daughter. Of your eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Of your brothers and sister. Of your friends.

Surely you are dancing to “Flowers” with Patti Ann, and maybe you’re having a sit-down breakfast with your mom and dad—but where?

Just in your mind?

Do you even have a mind anymore?

Where does consciousness live?

Certainly you are happy that you don’t have to figure out how to be human anymore.

Maybe I’m projecting.

I would be happy, I think, to be free of trying to figure out how to give my body what it needs, or to tell my ego or fear to be at rest. I definitely would be happy to be free of overthinking.

But somehow I feel, in your passing, that I can be free of overthinking.

It is possible to live more freely here in the tension of being human.

Of course it’s possible, because I’m not the same as I was nine months ago, nine years ago, or nine days ago.

And yet so much is the same.

I certainly see you in a different way.

I had way too many stories of who you were when you were alive. Now it seems I barely scratched the surface of your vastness.

And this is why I had so many tears and emotions at Billy Strings the other night.

Potential.

Does it end at death?

I don’t think so. Only in the human realm.

And so, what or how am I limiting myself here?

I feel my potential, and I feel my limits.

Surely there is room inside me to experience more here in this earthly life.

I know there is, but I’m also a bit nervous about the world of fantasizing about what I can do.

Where is the plumb line between what I feel excitement for in what I can create and the limits of my mind and body?

Do you still feel the tension of limits and potential?

Do you see everything more clearly, or are you still working things out?

Are you reflecting on your human existence?

Are you at peace knowing that was just a blip in your eternal existence? It was not all as heavy and serious and measured as it felt here in human form.

Where are you?

Are you planning your next entry into human life?

Will you be a bird? A tree by the water? Will you be a customer who comes in to buy a hat?

Where are you?

Do you think about your beliefs you had here in a more vast way?

Is it more obvious now who Jesus is?

Did you even get welcomed by him like you thought you might?

Was he there along with your mom and dad, and Patti Ann and Hank and Amber? Were they all there when you left your body?

You took your last breath here, but where did you go?

You didn’t stop existing—this I know.

Not because the Bible told me so.

You could say the Holy Spirit, which is me and you, showed me.

I showed me because I am One with you.

We are One.

That’s why it feels like a part of me left and reentered.

I lost a part of me, and now I have a part of you in me.

It’s all One.

We are all One.