For My Mother

A few months ago I went by the cemetery where you lay I have been meaning to stop in but you know how life gets. It was late September chilly and overcast the clouds were thick and hung heavy above the sad oaks like a gray sagging sheet. The grounds were unkept brown oak leaves collected at the base of the headstones that had caught them as they flew restless on the breeze. I parked my car and walked up and down the silent rows headed toward yours and allowed memories of you to come into the focus of my minds eye I remember waking up one morn long ago and my eyes wouldn't open So I screamed and cried I felt the tears on my checks and still my eye would not open then I heard your voice then I felt you take me in your arms then there was the warmth of your hands as they wiped the gunk that had collected on them from pink eye in the night I tired to imagine your smile when my eyes did open but the only thing I could see in my minds eye was a featureless face because Addiction only takes leaving nothing at all A breeze come over the cemetery then bringing with it a chill and I tried again to picture you and your smile along with it's warmth and assurance of unending love but I couldn't it was instead replaced with the feeling of anger in your voice when you called to ask me for money one Christmas Eve a lifetime ago I told you I didn't couldn't do it that I didn't have it but really I didn't believe your story and knew what the money was for because Addiction only takes leaving nothing at all I was coming up to your grave then and I thought about how you use to make me and my friends snacks and brought them into my room while we played video games So I imagined you with a small platter of odds and ends but in my minds eye I saw only a manikin wearing your clothes holding a platter with a sad smile on it's plastic face because Addiction only takes leaving nothing at all A few steps from your stone I thought about the call when I learned that your liver had finally failed not long after I got home to find someone that looked like yet nothing like the woman I had known your body failed with it. I could clearly recall your epitaph but when I rounded the stone and stood in front of your plot I was surprised by what I saw Not long after the day we laid you down your stone was placed it had read: Debra Lynn Krage Loving mother, Daughter, Sister. Wonderful Wife Who will be forever missed in this life. But that day as I stood there beneath that over cast sky the words were indistinguishable from the stone like tears shed in rain the last vestiges illegible remained I don't know why this surprised me in hindsight I know well enough after all that Addiction only takes and takes and takes leaving in it's wake nothing nothing at all.