Thinking back it's fitting that we flew her body home and lifted it for cremation near the cemetery in Chico. Her atoms were released to the the sky and united with all that is. My youngest son told me that in Irish legend the spirit or soul returns home. So maybe all of her came back to us, her soul and her body, and we've learned to live her and share her, releasing her to the universe that gave her to us.
March is a difficult time, a slow and painful march of her life to her death. She was here and enjoyed the wildflowers of Table Mountain with her friends that last March, and I find solace in that. If she was suffering we didn't see it, perhaps because she was so happy to be home. Her descent was swift and brutal that April. No one saw it coming. I would have done anything I could to save her, stepped into her place without hesitation. We don't get to die for our children, and as difficult as it is, we must sometimes know their death. I remember the moment my soul was ripped from my body, and it's only recently that I've begun to wonder what those with me witnessed.
On a recent cross country hike on Table Mountain, I was humbled by the perfect skeleton of a coyote, cleaned by vultures and insects and microbes. It was empty and hollowed out, yet beautiful. The green grass in contrast to the mystery of death, the mystery of life. I know that the space within me left by Katie's death, once filled by her life, is somehow sacred. Five long years of grief have carved deeply into me, and I know what it feels like to resonate with the death of my child. Sometimes it strikes so hard I'm stunned, as in that first impact of knowing her death. After more than 5 years, it's become a relentless longing for her, for what we all had. I've learned to humble myself and resonate with my love for her, my grief for her, all one and the same. And I walk in the wildflowers on Table mountain each Spring.
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