The Elephant Graveyard

When elephants come across the bones of another elephant, the whole herd stops, reaching out their trunks to smell, then lift each bone, passing them one to another, searching it for identity and memories, rumbling softly. It starts with the matriarch of the herd--for elephants follow the oldest and wisest female--and goes to the youngest calf. Only when each has searched the bones, do they go on.

I do this myself in a way, not with bones, but with memories, fragments of stories, and vibes of loved ones who have died, even if, like tonight/today it's 4 a.m., and I need to sleep, but I'm too busy trying to remember a particular conversation, not just the words, but the inflections of their speech, the expression on their faces, what they said and what went unsaid but heard, and what I might have heard then, but couldn't understand until now.

2010...no, I have to go back to 2009, when a cousin committed suicide, and stunned the family. We reeled into the angry and baffled grief specific to suicide. (One of the lessons I took from Matthew's death was that whole side of the family--myself included-- is way too stoic and stoicism can be deadly. You have to be willing to call out in pain so that the herd can rush to help.) Later in the year, my aunt Susan's cancer went from "we can treat this" to "there's nothing more we can do." At the same time, my mom's illness and chronic pain worsened, leaving us desperate to hold on to her, but wondering how much she would have to endure.

In the last few months of Susan's life, I could barely even process what was happening. I was so focused on caring for my mom, so afraid that this loss would take what strength she had left. My mom and Susan were born fifteen months apart and died less than three months apart. After my mom died, over and over, I'd think "I need to call Susan" and then I remembered I couldn't, and reality hit me so hard that I sank to my knees. Somehow we had lost them both in that short span of time and they took with them so much knowledge and wisdom and history.....the thought of it was unbearable.

In 2012,  I feel like maybe I have my feet under me again, and then I'll have a night when I roll over, waking from one dream and before sliding into another, I find myself back in the elephant graveyard, remembering fragments of a conversation, trying to keep the words in order, straining to recall if something unspoken slipped in among them, like an elephant searching for the wisdom of matriarchs who made this journey before me.