Far Leather Flower Noun

She always ran late.  Late to work.  Late to dinner.  Late.  It was often said about her...she'll be late for her own funeral!

It was kind of true.  There were so many folks at visitation, the funeral did start late.

I'm dreaming about her.  They were casual, fun dreams until Sunday.  I woke up in a cold sweat Sunday.

She would live if she took this medicine.  She could have the medicine if requirements were met.

If I met the requirements.

It was not clear what the requirements were, but I did meet them for a while.

And she lived.

Then she died again.  And it was just as horrible as it was the first time.  But this time, unlike the first, brought the grief.  Six hundred sixty days later.

The grief is stacked on top of the stress.  The stress is large, uneven and unruly.  The stress is having a hard time balancing it's grief.  Tears spill almost constantly in an effort to minimize the strain.  Keep the dam from completely bursting.

I sit at the office and cry through the payroll, invoicing and production reporting.  I'm hidden away in the kitchen cooking dinner, washing dishes and crying.  I'm out walking the dog at night so I can cry and cry and cry some more.

She was not my daughter so I don't grieve for her the way my grandma does.

She was not my sister so I can't grieve for her the way my mother does.

She was truly my friend, confidant, partner in crime, co-event manager, yen to my yang.  We used to have a happy hour/bitch session almost every day after work.  In about an hour we were able to listen or bitch, get it out and move on.  When I remarried, those "therapy" sessions decreased in number and that was OK with me as I had a husband to tend to.  Then I got pregnant.  Then she had a surgery and got "diagnosed."

The tumor came from where?  What do you mean more surgery?  Why didn't you do your job the FIRST TIME, on THIS surgery?

And two weeks later I had a baby.  At the same hospital.

Then we needed to buy a house.  Then we moved to the other side of the river.

River Yankee.  We thought we were pretty clever when we decided to call her boyfriend that.  Now I'd become one.

I loved the area we all used to live in, but when bought on the other side of the river, that commute back "home" seemed so far away.  And a pain in the ass to get to.  Visits became much less frequent.

And her hair fell out.  She told Junior they were going to have a race.  Who could grow their hair faster, longer.  Junior's had another six hundred sixty days to grow his hair out, it's almost to his butt.

She had a stroke.  With all that radiation and poking about in her brain, it's no wonder.  She was weak, yet determined.  She and Junior would assemble wooden puzzles at the dinner table.  I could never be sure who I was more proud of, her for telling her brain to make her hand grasp that small knob and place it in the right hole or Junior, for not being afraid of how she looked and still playing with her.

He has the puzzles.  He's pretty good at putting them together now.  It sucks to know he won't remember how he came to own them and who he played with them first.

660.