I couldn’t write before.
I ate spaghetti al pomodoro 4 hours after receiving the call. My mother was dead. Lele added an extra pinch of red pepper flakes. Umami. My mouth was alive. I was in Murano and I sat at a table alone.
I woke to a text.
Call me when you wake.
Is something wrong?
Yes.
My sister called.
I’m in bed. I sit up pulling the sheet to cover me.
7.30am.
Mom’s gone.
I exhale. A weird first emotion. Not what I expected to feel. Relief. She’s free. How many times had I feared this call? Profound grief. Primal. Like a miscarriage.An aborted fetus. Raw.
I ask how.
It wasn’t entirely unexpected.
A heart attack? A stroke? We are not sure. It was fast.
Relief.
No pain.
My mom has been in pain many years. Since long before the accident that left her disabled, bedridden. She’s free.
Her life wasn’t easy but she gave me a good life. Roots and Wings. By the time I was in uni Mom was different. That summer I was in London my mom literally blew away in a tornado like something out of The Wizard of Oz. Her spinal cord severed.
Her Garden overgrew with weeds. The irises remained. Returning. Year after year. Green shoots like spring onions pushing through the earth.The iris. 3 petals. Like a trinity. A link between heaven and earth.
There’s no place like home.
There’s no place like home.
I tap my feet.
With covid, my never ending visa situation. Traveling - leaving the country - isn’t a possibility.
I won’t go home for my mother’s funeral. It sinks in.
I exhale until my lungs are empty.
I hung up not sure what to do. So I went to my appointment.
I saw a friend. She held me in her arms and let me weep. You could have canceled. she said. I didn’t know what to do. I said. So I went.
In grieving you don’t do. There is little to do but feel. Remember.
I remembered mom - the mom of my childhood - standing in the garden eating a hot tomato straight from the vine, dragonflies buzzing, the smell of hay so fresh it prickles. A turtle on a rock.
I take a seat at the Trattoria Busa alla Torre. I order spaghetti al pomodoro and a glass of red wine. Red wine an odd choice for July. My bones needed a fire. I took my fork and twirled the strands along the tines.

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