liminations: the coffin was open

i stood at the foot of the cross,

lights bright and buzzing {faint and persistent} while laughter and grief filled the space behind me.

this was a setting i knew from my youth but everything looked different, smelled different.

familiar yet foreign.

i looked close at the man lying there, trying to see the man i knew and loved.

he was not there.

my tears perched along the edges of my lids.

as they fell, i tried to find something to connect this body with my grief.

his hands were gently crossed just below his navel, fingered hand on top.

i reached out, his skin was cool to the touch.

i nestled my hand under his fingers to reach the space underneath, where his other fingers used to be.

before.

before he started cutting meat. before i was born. before i knew that wasn't "normal."

i ran my hand across the callous of his stump. it was unnaturally cool but i knew that texture.

i followed the contour of his callous and found his thumb.

i closed my eyes and remembered sitting on his lap, running my hand across his stump, amazed that he could still move the bones and tendons underneath, without the extension of fingers.

i remembered working alongside him in the garage, packaging meat.

i was probably just playing-acting but he let me believe it was work.

he would run his solo thumb across the white butcher paper to smooth it and then tear it across the blade. using his thumb, he'd point to the spot where i could stamp the package with its label.

his thumb.

his very pointy, very long thumb.

and here it was: still pointy and still long, stiff with death.

i held my hand there a while longer, remembering.

remembering his smirk - the one my sister and i might have inherited whenever we get in trouble. the one i loved to capture on film, even though it was too mischievous for my grandmother to deem it a "great" picture.

remembering his deep pleasure in sitting amidst family, watching. watching his children or his grandchildren, or his great grandchildren living in the space around him.

remembering his tales of people-watching or stranger interactions at turkeyville or mcdonalds.

he was a lover of people {and sweets}.

remembering his faithfulness, childlike and tacit.