Lost Love

I took a memoir class in my junior year at MECA with professor Claude Caswell. He gave us many powerful writing exercises including several "free writes." One morning Claude told us to do a free write on the topic of lost love. "Write about lost love for 30 minutes," he said, and he set the timer.

Lost Love

My heart is beating

fast

scared.

Write about lost love

he says.

All I can think of

is Lisbeth

and how

I lost the little girl

that she was

that day

in sparkling summer.

She'd been ill

and was feeling better

then awoke

that morning

saying

Mommy

I don't feel good.

I laid her on the couch

and gave her some Tylenol.

Twenty minutes later

It happened.

She was grey

eyes rolled back

the whites of her eyes now yellow, moist

a faint clicking in her throat

her body stiff

jittery

I yelled to Garry

to come.

Call 911

he said

and somehow

I did.

Waiting on the front steps

for the ambulance

the word epilepsy

playing

in my head.

The ambulance.

The men carrying her out.

Garry rode with her

I followed

in our car

praying

oh god

please

this is not

how I want to grow up

The ER.

Lisbeth

on the stretcher

they'd cut

her pink summer shorts

in half

tubes

down her throat

And Garry.

leaning over her tiny body

her shiny white blond body

her perfect pink six year old body

her blue eyes

shut.

What

(The Fuck)

was happening

wanting to turn and run away

Garry saw it in my face

and said

gently

c'mon Mart.

I walked to the cot

where she lay

and I

began

to sing to her.

I sang all the lullabies

I'd sung to her

when she was a baby.

I knew what my job was

now.

Years later I would dream that Lisbeth was just an egg

an egg that I could hold in my hand.

The doctors came in and said

that they

could re-attach her head

but

I saw them look at each other

worriedly

doubtfully.

I saw them do that.

And all the king's horses and all the king's men

couldn't put Lisbeth together again.

Kaitlyn and Lisbeth at Mount Hope, 1987

pastel and oil on Rives BFK, 22" x 30"

collection of Edna Simmons

Kaitlyn and Lisbeth, 1987

pastel, oil, charcoal and pencil on Rives BFK, 22" x 30"

collection of Robert Johnson