Tuesday – Phone Call From Heaven

[ninanevermore]

I think the only way I could have handled the news yesterday about Leslie with grace and humor would have been if she could have called me and delivered it herself. With almost every phone call, she had a way of making me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. Leslie, I think, would have appreciated her own death in a way that none of us left behind will ever be able to.

I can hear her voice with its slow Texas drawl, gravely from years of cigarettes and yelling at her son's doctors and nurses who needed to be taken down a peg.

"Hey girl, it's your cousin Leslie Carol! Listen, you are never going to believe what I did on Sunday. Never in a million years. I can't even believe it myself. Are you ready? I died!"

"No way."

"No, girl, I swear, I did. I didn't plan on it, but boom, it just happened."

"I don't believe you. You can't die; you're too full of piss and vinegar. No one as ornery as you can just up and die."

"You'd think that, wouldn't you? Shit, it took me by surprise, too."

"But you're calling me..."

"Yeah, turns out they let you make a phone call if you want."

"Oh. I see. So heaven is like...jail?"

"Only in this one way, honey."

"Okay, I get it. I'm sorry, Leslie, I'm having a hard time taking this in. I can't really imagine a world without you in it."

"I know, baby girl, I know. I'm having a hard time imagining a world without me in it, too. But you're gonna be all right. I know you can handle this. You're strong, girl, even if you don't know it."

"I gotta take your word for that, because I'm not so sure right now."

"Well, I just thought I'd call you and let you know what was going on with me. I figured it'd be easier is you heard it right from me."

"I appreciate that. You only get one phone call? Shouldn't you have called Wren?"

"Wren already knows, baby doll; he was there. He did CPR on me till the ambulance showed up, bless his heart. He tried his best. You know, I just felt something weird and I called his name, and he comes running into the bedroom to check on me, but I was already gone when he got there. When it's your time, I guess it's your time."

"I guess so. What about your mother?"

"Mom's gonna be a mess, I'm sure. You know how she gets. I didn't even want to deal with her and her bullshit. Let somebody else call her."

"I don't want to call her, either. She's never going to forgive you, you know. If she can't forgive you for running away when you were 14 or getting pregnant when you were 17, no way in hell she'll forgive you for dying when you're only 49. Leaving home, getting married, dropping dead -- damnit, Leslie, everything you ever did, you did too young."

"Girl, ain't that the truth?"

"Stop laughing, I'm serious. Oh, hell, laugh all you want. If this is the last time I get to hear from you, I want to remember the sound of you laughing."

"Listen, baby, don't you worry about me. I told you before, I don't want people moping around and bawling over me at a funeral. That's why I'm giving my body to science. I don't want any of that shit."

"It's not your decision, Les. We get to have a memorial service if we want, and I'll cry my eyes out through the whole thing. Look, if you die and everyone laughs and has a party like said you want, it means they all hated your guts and they're glad to see you gone. When people love you, they cry. You cried at your daddy's funeral, and at Papaw's, and you still cried over my mama the last time we talked about her. You can't stop me from crying over you; it's my right."

"Well, you do what you need to do, Nina. I just don't want you going to too much trouble on my account. Tell you what, I got things to do here, so I gotta let you go. You take care of yourself, baby girl. Remember, I'm watchin' out for you. I got your back, Nina."

"Wait, Leslie, I need to tell you something. It's important."

"Sure, but make it quick, Nina. I really gotta go."

"You know all those times you told me that you loved me like a little sister? God, I can't even count how many times you told me that. I always told you I loved you back, but I never said I loved you like a sister.

"Well, I do. My mother mothered you more than your own mother ever did. So much of what I know about my mom, Leslie, I know from the stories you told me about her. I only remember her through the eyes of a child, but you showed me how she would have treated an adult daughter. So we have her in common; we were both mothered by the same mother. This means you are really my big sister, and I love you like one.

"I can't let you leave forever without telling you that."


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Comments

[thrashgrrrl.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear of your loss. *hugs*

[http://users.livejournal.com/batty_/]

hugs and love.

[libra-dragon.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

letting you know that.

[regatomic.livejournal.com]

some messages are better late than never,..o.o

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Re: letting you know that.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Now that she's gone, late is the same as never. I never said it because I didn't even realize it until too late.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

You really don't want to hug me right now, I'll just end up getting a lot of tears and snot on your shoulder.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Beautiful... *hugs*

[aymen.livejournal.com]

::big hugs::

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

*hugs back*

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Thanks. {{hugs back}}

*BIG HUGS*

[skipperja.livejournal.com]

I'd like to show that phone call to others.

It reminded me that my father's mother died at 49. That was a couple of years before I was born. She had a blood clot after a hysterectomy. That was back in 1939.

[altzen.livejournal.com]

A) This made me cry a little. I am so sorry for your loss. And B) It reminded me of this Richard Brautigan piece - an introduction to a book he wrote called "An Unfortunate Woman". It is in the form of a letter to a friend who has died. I had to dig the book out so I could quote and show you. I am putting the first two paragraphs - and then some parts toward the end - which sadly misses some of the meat in the middle - but it's still solid.

"Dear N,

After I got the telephone call from your friend, I was of course deeply shocked, stunned would be a better word. I just sad beside the telephone for a few moments, staring at it, and then I called a close neighbor M and asked her if she wanted some watermelon. I had bought a watermelon a few days ago for some company, and we didn't get around to eating it, so there I was, a bachelor stuck with too much watermelon.

My neighbor said she would like some watermelon. Why didn't I bring it over in half an hour and have dinner with her and a friend T who was visiting?

...

I wanted to talk to her for a few moments about the telephone call that I had gotten from your friend, but then suddenly her hesitancy and growing uncomfortableness made me feel hesitant and uncomfortable.

Finally, I guess, only a couple of minutes had passed and then she said, looking down at the floor, "I left T upstairs writhing around on the bed."

T was a man.

My bringing over the watermelon had just interrupted their lovemaking. My first thoughts were: Why had she answered the telephone while she was making love to somebody and then why didn't she think up some excuse for me not to come over at that time? I mean, she could have said anything and I would have come over later, but instead she had said yes to my coming over.

Anyway, I apologized and went back home.

Then I thought about the humor in the situation and wanted to call you on the telephone and tell you what had just happened because you have the perfect sense of humor to understand it. It's just the kind of story you would have enjoyed and responded to with your musically screeching laughter and said something like "Oh, no!" while still laughing.

I sat there staring at the telephone, wanting very much to call you, but I was completely unable to do so because the telephone call I had gotten from your friend a little while before told me that you had died Thursday.

I had gone over to my friend's house to talk about it when I interrupted her lovemaking. The watermelon was just some kind of funny excuse to talk about my grief and try to get some perspective on the fact that I can never call you again on the telephone and tell you something like I've just done that basically only your sense of humor could appreciate.

Love,

R"

[welfy.livejournal.com]

You need to write a book.

Re: *BIG HUGS*

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I would be flattered for you to share it with people. Feel free.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. I think Richard Brautigan would have understood perfectly that the one person I've wanted to call these last few day, who would put everything into perspective, was the person I could no longer call.

Grief is a such universal experience, but it's manifestations are so uniquely individual.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Writing a book would be a major endeavor, and I can barely find time to do the laundry.

[jenelycam.livejournal.com]

*sobs* That's beautiful

[noblwish.livejournal.com]

You pegged her, cousin!!! Now, whenever I want to remember her voice, I can just read this and it will all come back to me. Thank you!

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm weird that way: grief has a way of making me eloquent.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I guess you got a computer up and running. Yea!

It's been 5 years since I last saw her (the day of your baby shower for Rorie, to be exact), but over the last few years I have listened to her voice for hours on end when she called me on the phone. You have no idea how much I grew to look forward to those calls, to the point that I - the biggest telephonephobe on the planet - would call her if I didn't hear from her for too long.

I know her every influction, her tones, her moods, her laughter, the way I know the songs I hear on the radio. It wasn't hard for me to recreate her voice.

I haven't heard anything about a memorial service, but I need one desperately. I never realized how much it means to have a coffin to cry on and a patch of earth to put flowers on, until now when I am denied these things. If Aunt Jo doesn't come through, let's please put something together in January. I will start accruing vaction later this month, and I should be able to take a day off and help with the arrangements. Not just a barbecue, but a short service with a eulogy followed by a raucous wake. I need this, if no one else does.

And because if I do it twice it becomes a tradition...

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I left your daddy's poem in an LJ comment to you in your journal(at least my first draft of it), so here is a poem for Leslie, delivered in the same fashion.


Leslie's Song

When she told me you were gone,
I swear I thought, "Gone where?"
though it soon became clear
that what she meant was that you were gone,
really gone, as in for good.

Two days before, I spoke to you,
when you were feeling poorly
but wanted to touch base,
and now I replay your words,
not to analyze them for deeper meaning
or for indications of your condition that I missed,
but to savor your wonderful voice,
its texture like the gravel on a country road,
its Texas drawl twanging like a string
plucked on a steal guitar,
backed by the percussion of your laughter,
the chords of your anger
blasted toward the doctor
who told you it was just stress
that was making you so tired and sick.

Hearing that your voice is silenced
made the air around me feel
like the expectant air at the end of a concert
in those brief seconds between the final notes
and the moment when the audience rises to its feet
to applaud as the troubadour takes a bow.



- Nina Erickson
12/12/07
© 2007

Bravo!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm posting anonymously 'cuz it just takes too damn long to log-in on this ancient device if you don't have to.

Excellent poem! As your copy-editor, may I suggest that, in the last paragraph, you change "expectant air" to "expectant pause" so as to avoid using the word "air" twice in one sentance?

This is Aly, btw.

Re: Bravo!

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Look, I know this won't be emailed to you, but maybe you'll peak back and read it.

It's a newborn poem; of course it's red and wrinkled and kind of ugly. In a few rewrites, it will have it's eyes opened and might be a bit prettier. I'll fix the double use of the word expectant, and the title will need to be fixed as well (Titles are hard for me. Remember, my son was known as Baby Boy Erickson for the first 4 days of life, before we saddled him with something strange and unpronounceable just prior to leaving the hospital).

[callmekili.livejournal.com]

how great would it be if we could have that phone call... the one straight from the horses mouth....

*sigh*

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

It would be wonderful, wouldn't it?