Forty Five Days

After my sister died, I took great comfort in something said to me by a woman I worked with. This was not a woman I particularly liked. She was a model of passive-aggressive behavior, who never ever failed to get under my skin. And, she was the epitome of new age-y spirituality. She was always pushing some loopy modality or other, from wheat grass juice to healing crystals.

Anyway. She told me that some Buddhists believe that after a person dies, the soul remains intact in this plane for forty-five days before being reabsorbed into the universal energy.

I figured out the date that was forty-five days from my sister's death. During those days, I talked to her frequently, just sitting down with a cup of tea and talking. "Oh Man, Kathy, remember the time..." That kind of thing. I dreamed about her several times. And then, on the forty-fifth day, I went out on the deck outside of the kitchen of my place in Brooklyn, and looked up at the stars and said good-bye.

So I'm looking forward to spending time with Mark over the next forty-days. Interestingly enough, the forty-fifth day will be September 5th, the second day of Inferno. I think that I'll somehow do with Mark on September 5th the scene we never had a chance to do.

I started to do this last night. When I poured my beaten body into bed, I recalled how Mark had told me about a special memory he had of the love of his life, one glorious summertime day, while visiting New York, they went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then headed into Central Park. It was a glorious green summertime day, they were drunk on laughter, and their love of each other. I told Mark that I wished him that day with the man he loved for all eternity, a glorious green summertime afternoon, filled to overflowing with love and laughter.

PunchPig knew Mark. They had an on-line relationship. But when I told him just before we did our scene that Mark had died, he was saddened. Such was the spirit of this man.

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