Post-Memorial Day 2009

Oso, this is the 3 year anniversary of your loss, your being set free, your going away from me. Not exactly a thing to celebrate, but a thing to always mark and remember. One year ago, I got your tattoo. It’s on my left arm, and it gives me comfort and love and confidence, in a small piece, just as you did. I miss you, Bear. I miss you every day, always, every time something, anything significant happens. I think of you being with me everywhere, and how, even though your sister and this brother, this Corgi, you never knew are in my heart deeply, they cannot be with me in the way that you were. You were first. You were my best bear. I love you, and this day was yours.

I did something today that I hope honored your spirit. I went to a bike repair workshop. I know that sounds weird, so let me explain why that would have anything to do with you. It came about like this. I go to work on a Tuesday after Memorial Day, your holiday. I am depressed and sad to be in this place, where I do nothing and make nothing and get paid as a writer but don’t feel good about it. I go and I talk to my friend who is older and wiser and wonderful and who therefore understands. (She’s a soul like ours, Os.) She mentions an article in the Times Sunday magazine. I say, wow, that’s weird, I was just thinking about doing something with my hands. I used to work as a handyperson when I first moved to Greensboro (before you were born) and needed money but didn’t want to work in an office. (I knew better, even then.) I read the article. It is amazing; it could describe my life, or the life I want. I remember that the Recycle a Bicycle shop had workshops or something, and I look it up. I have to call several times. No, they say, Tuesday/ladies night has been changed. It’s now on Wednesdays and it’s for everyone.

Bear, what they do in this workshop is let people come in and learn how to fix bikes. You become a volunteer, and you learn about how bikes are put together. This has to do with you because when I got you, when I lived as a poet in Greensboro, I was living the most honest life I have ever lived. I had worked with my hands, and still did, in off-times, with the same guy, after I got you. I was making my living by the seat of my pants, and I had no money, I picked tomatoes off the vines Jeff Towne planted on the sides of Carr Street and made a pasta dinner with them almost every night, and I could barely afford paper to print on, but I was happy. We were happy. You always had food, and I took the best care of you, always. We had good friends, and we both learned how to be who we were. I was ok. We were ok. Together. Going and spending a couple of hours getting dirty and learning how to do something useful (I ride my bike every day), something real, means that I’m in touch with my soul, Os, and that means I’m in touch with you.

I hope you understand.

I didn’t travel to Paterson or Greensboro or Dallas or the Blue Ridge Parkway, where your ashes are. I didn’t spend all day writing poetry. I didn’t cry about you all day. But I thought about you all day, and I did cry, of course, and I did go and do this thing, as a person, alone in a city that is MUCH scarier than Greensboro, thinking of you all the while, and hoping that what I was doing somehow makes sense to your spirit. In a way, it is just you and me again.

Because your spirit is with me everyday, even when I go to that place where I labor. It has helped me continue to write despite it all, and continue to put my work out there, every month, in an effort to have my voice heard. I am publishing something this week, THIS WEEK, Os, which is a strange and wondrous coincidence, about you. I know this is important; I know you would understand it has to be done alone. But with you, Os, I was never alone. I could do what I needed to do but never be alone. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, and I had it, for a time, with you. And for that, I will always be grateful, and I will always love you and remember this day.

It is still that way. You are still my Bear, I am working hard to be the writer you witnessed the birth of, and I know, I know because of you, that I am never, ever alone in that effort.

Memorial Day 2008

Two years, Bear. In the second one, I started truly being here, where you brought me. Where we came together. In honor of you, this weekend I gave your name a place on me physically. It is the only thing I ever thought should go there, and it is the only tattoo I will ever have. Kind of like you were the only dog I ever loved the way I did. Now that I have you on me, forever – for the rest of my ever anyway – I feel even closer to you. And, somehow, freer of the sad memory of two years ago.

What’s replacing that sad day is my good memories of you. I remember you best as always wanting to be outside. No matter where we lived, there had to be a way for you to be outside. (It’s why I rented the place we still live in, with its tiny “backyard” that I know you would be on right now, watching the birds and planes fly over, the wind moving the ivy on the old church, the old Brooklyn ladies next door wheeling in their laundry.) Lying in the grass, or the dirt, or even the driveway…watching the world, taking it in: That is Oso. Then the little game you would play with me when I had to ask you come in: You’d pretend to not hear me, but you’d be very still and sort of looking at me out of the corner of your eye. “Os!” I’d say again. Suddenly you’d jump up and run to me. I love that this seemed like a vestige of your young-dog run-from-me days. I love you for it – I always did – because you were strong-willed and independent, but so loyal. Just as I was to you. You only find that kind of connection with another soul, Os. We had it. We still do and we always, always will.

an understanding

To live a life – my life – in honor of a lost one, a man down, a comrade too soon taken: I can think of no greater tribute to my Oso than to return to the life we had together, to finish what we started.

Os, you died before you could grow old with me, but I promise you now: I will grow old with you. And as I do, I will continue to write, create and believe as I’d begun to in the years I was lucky enough to have you in my life. Especially at the beginning, when we really developed our bond.

I’ve always known that you represent something vital and important to me, to my very identity. I wasn’t sure what it was. But now, as I’ve begun to see that my life must change, must return, the two great struggles of my life – one recent (losing you); and one eternal (being an artist) – have dovetailed into what I believe is my true and honest path: to be a writer.

My calling. It called me from Austin to Greensboro, to find you and the rest of our little family. It called me to New York, first on the worn stone steps of NYU’s English Department, and later, on the fire escape in Tribeca that night in September…I was out of earshot for a long time, even while you were with me. Only recently did I hear it again, on the F train home every day from Times Square.

This is for you, Oso. Every word, every reader, every effort to get back in it, every moment of joy or pain. It is all (as I wrote once, a long time ago) only and forever you.

Memorial Day 2007

One year today, Oso. This is our Memorial Day. You are still with me, every day. I miss you, every day. You didn't have a chance to see us build our life here in the city, but we have our life - mom & bear - and nothing can ever change or touch that. I love & appreciate every moment we had together. I just wish we'd had more. Nothing and everything has changed in our year apart, Bear. That's all I see this as, really...now, we have a while to be apart. I'll be with you again, and it will be the happiest day. In the mean time, stay with me, Os, any way you can.

Memorial Day 2006

Appropriate. Nothing's lessened. My Bear. "Stay with me," I used to tell him on steep hills, slippery surfaces, stairs. He always did. He always will.

A pawprint on my heart, a handprint on his.

He used to lie in the yard, paws stretched straight out in front, quietly watching the world. The birds & squirrels would flit around him, and he would just watch. The essense of Oso: a peacefulness. This is only one thing I can learn from him.