I still see the way he plopped down on the bed
beside me just before he left to run an errand
on his way to work- his weight, his hair and freckles,
how tall he'd grown in sixteen summers on the earth.
He took the script I held and tested me to see if
I had learned my lines, such silly lines, a comedy
that opened within weeks. By then I'd come home, after the
applause and bows, the glass of champagne sipped, and sit
inside the car all by myself to contemplate
the ins and outs of joining him in heaven even though I knew
it wasn't yet my time to go. It hurt ... so much ... that it was his.
Twenty years plus four have passed since then. Today the sky
is blue, the air both hot and heavy when it hits my thickened skin,
an accessory, don't you agree? that every grieving parent needs to own.
There was no script for this, no cues or blocking, and the others
in the cast were just as lost as I on where to stand or what to do.
But.
Even though the play has lasted twenty years plus four, today ...
today the sky is blue.
(c) 2024, Ellen Gillette
Adam Gillette was in an accident during the early hours of August 20, 2000 and hospitalized for two days. Declared dead on August 22, Adam was an organ donor, saving the lives of five people and giving sight to two others.
