3/24

while taking my haphazard inventory
i came across what was left
after she closed her shop: espiritu
of her huge collection
of beads/necklaces

then i went through her closet again
my mother had a habit
of squirreling money away in strange places;
when i was little
i was going through some old cosmetics
that she was throwing away
and found $100 tucked inside the packaging

when i was packing her up
to move from rhinebeck to brooklyn,
i found $1000 in a box of fancy soaps.

when my brother was here
i told him where she had been stashing cash
so we could put it in a safe place
but when he found the envelope
there was only $300 in it
i was expecting about twice that

but today,
going through her drawers
i came upon a wad of bills just stuck on the side,
it was the money i thought was missing

i know my mother,
she must have needed some cash
and so got up to get it from her hiding place
but
for her to not take the time
to put it back properly
could only mean one thing
that she did not have the energy to do so,
that standing up had become too much for her
so she just stuffed it in the drawer
and got back into bed

the vision i had
of her getting up to get what she needed
and then finding out she was too weak to complete the task
was so vivid and real to me
and so encapsulated the discrepancy
between who she was and what her body had become
that it literally made me gasp
as if was watching her
right there in front of me