strange days

My nephew Bilbo died today. Yesterday I had raced from Virginia to New York to be with him and Monty. The entire bus ride up, I kept hoping I’d make it before he passed. Around seven in the evening I got off at Penn Station and took the A and the L to Ridgewood. Monty had him wrapped in a little blanket on her bed. His eyes were open and he was breathing, but he did not react much. We stayed with him on the bed for a long time, eventually moving to the living room and Monty cradling him in his blanket as we all sat around talking and saying goodbye. Monty said she could tell he had perked up a little having people he knew around, but it was only a matter of time until his little body gave out . . . he had chronic kidney disease and had rapidly lost weight in the last few weeks, and was down to only four pounds.

Before we went sleep, Monty laid him back down on her bed. He felt cold to the touch but was still hanging on . . . I kissed him on the cheek and told him I loved him. I knew it would be the last time I would see him alive.

He passed away in the early morning while we were all still sleeping. A man came to collect him for cremation a few hours later but I did not look.

Bilbo was a soothing guy to be around. He was absolutely pure in heart. He was Monty’s best friend. He was her Dante. Bilbo and I spent a week together in Portland last winter, just the two of us, while Monty and her family were traveling through Idaho. He stayed by my side the entire time and slept on my pillow every night. I will miss him so much. Rest in peace, sweet Bilbo.

i’ll keep you all abreast on this developing story

UPDATE:

me in new york to be honest!!!

made this for exactly one person, but here it is anyway

you laughed like a water mark

I leave for New York at noon . . . I feel very strange about it . . . a sort of glow-in-the-dark numbness. It’s hard to describe. When I left it last time, I was sure it would be years until I saw it again. And yet . . . !

It’s late and I ought to pack my bags . . .

I have just stepped in from the cold, and I’m not quite sure what reactivated it, but upon taking off my leather bomber jacket just now, I once again smelled Nicole’s perfume on the fur collar. It felt like a piano had landed on my head.

And elsewhere, far off in Los Angeles, I felt the phantom feeling of someone from long ago.

do you feel sympathy for yourself?

for that lonely spot inside of you?

the one that she mirrors with her own loneliness?

you feel seen and mirrored in your deepest loneliness . . .

when you saw her and felt that feeling, what you were really seeing was yourself . . .

hey once again it’s monday monday! have a good one y’all!!!

(attention sisters of the splintered sword group chat: we shall once again convene in new york city later this week . . . stay tuned for details . . .)