A phrase snagged my attention during a mindless social media scroll the other day. Land of the Dead. I didn’t catch it with sufficient speed to read the article. Its specific reference escaped me. But the imagery stuck. I feel that. I dwell in a pool of memory. Its ripples take me farther and farther from the safety of a sturdy shore. The pool meets a river and the current hastens. I cling to a log, a floating pile of driftwood, a flat expanse of board from a long-forgotten shipwreck.
In the middle of the river I come upon a small island. I grab the brambles and drag myself to the muddy edge of its uncivilized contours. Half-submerged, half-saved, I cast my eyes into the woods. Then I see them: Their eyes fixed on my weary brow, their hands reaching for my trembling fingers. I recognize each face. I have come to the land of my dead, and I can only escape by making my way across its wild woods.
The arduous task nearly overwhelms me. My head falls. The spirits whisper my name in voices that I can never forget. “Mare bear,” says one, low and calm. A figure that endlessly hovers below the age of forty, the youngest of my siblings who surrendered to his own struggles. “Oh my baby girl,” whispers a small shape in a throaty voice. The cadence reminds me of an old country that I shall never see but somehow regard as home. I close my eyes.
A lovely cottage sits just beyond the untamed forest. I sense its nearness. In that house, the living wait for me. My clumsy hands force heavy branches to part so I may pass. I do not yet see the light streaming from windows as lace curtains unfurl in the soothing breeze. But it cannot be far. I draw a breath and forge ahead.
It’s the first day of the one-hundred twenty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining. Life continues.