Mementos

When you were days from
Dying
In that hospital bed
A woman came to talk to me

I knew that drill
I recognized the soft approach
Like putting your hand out for
A dog you don’t know
Will they bite?
Are they friendly?
A tentative hand,
Allowing them to smell and assess
On their terms
Before you can really get to know each other

I know it’s gentle,
Because it’s planned to be gentle
And it’s intentional to be soft
I wanted to reject it.

Stop handling me with kid gloves
I know what is happening

But I entertained her
Because I had no defenses left
I was water in her canal

She offered to return to make some
Mementos for my kids
I agreed

I remember when my old border collie was dying
I bought a mold kit and
I lay next to her on our wood floor and
Pressed her paw into the mold
To give to my husband who adored her

When the gentle lady returned she offered a few ideas
And I rejected the too-cheesy options
But I wanted his EKG
I wanted that option

The nurse printed out the EKG
And the gentle lady cut some strips and rolled them up
Into a small glass bottle with a stopper
One bottle for each of my kids and,
Because I asked,
One for me

I took the strip out when I got home
And saw he had inverted T waves
And it haunted me

I wanted a perfect strip
A perfect sinus wave PQRST
He would not be happy that the last and only
Memento we have of the rhythm of his
Beautiful heart
Was any bit abnormal
And was ominous for any pathology

The other memento was his thumbprint
The gentle lady pressed my husband’s thumb into a red
Stamp pad
And then we pressed it onto a small canvas
Two thumbprints that overlapped
Forming the shape of a heart

I have this canvas sitting on my windowsill
Not far from our wedding photo

I don’t know how to feel about it

It is almost pathetic

I think he’d hate it

The uniqueness of him
His personality, his being, his decisions, his soul
All his own, like a fingerprint

Maybe that is how I will try to look at this little canvas
That it is symbolic of the one-of-a-kind person
He was
I will try to forget about
Pressing his thumb onto it
After this gentle therapist went back to her office
To get “the kit”
How many thumbs has she pressed?
How many so soon to be dead fingers
Did she make impressions of
That it meant nothing to her
And it tortures me
It looks at me as a reminder of that day
That ICU bed
And the ridiculously trivial memento of
A person
Who I loved.

It makes me remember his thumb,
His hand
Still warm
And able to be held
And touch me
And it is now flat
In front of me with no dimension

And we lifted his finger
Which had no strength and no resistance
And inked it up like an inanimate stamp
And pressed it, like a craft

I insisted this gentle lady make one of the thumbs and
The EKG bottles for me,
Even though I am not a kid
Maybe kids aren’t as tormented by the aftermath of
Mementos that fall so short

So long after that day, I thought about inverted T waves.
I wanted to protect him from his inverted T waves
But I never could.