Rest in Peace, Carlita C. Canfield.

            Where did you go?  You’re in the ground, now, I suppose, but it doesn’t feel real.  How can you be dead? You were always so alive, so vital, like a flame, though you never burned me. I basked in your warmth, and I feel it still, though you are gone.

            You didn’t want me to call you “mom,” or “mother.” You said, “Just call me Carlita,” and you gave me that smile and looked straight into my eyes. You always did. You married my Dad, and I was his son, and I guess that was always enough. Your openness shocked me, shook me up in my guarded place, showed me that there was something in your faith that gave you power to love, deliver care packages when I was hungry and alone, give me a place to which I could return.

            And no matter how stupid or blind my actions, you were always there for me, especially when I was in the worst doubt of my life. We shared a faith, but you showed me how to make it work, depend on it, which you did time after time. Through your own losses, you showed me how tears heal us, an odd grace, leaking out from within. Just cry, make a cup of tea, and do what comes next.  And what comes next is loving, God, self, others: then, trust that caring for another is the way through, the path of faith, the sodden steps we must take if we heal. Let it start.

            My soon-to-wither flowers lay on that patch of dirt, made smooth and seeded. That will change, too, in time, with the small stone and your name and dates.  It will be green and fresh, someday, like your faith, like your care for your broken step-son. I will love on in your memory, while you live on in mine and the lives of all you took under your wings. It’s not your loss I feel but the gain that I carry, having been loved in to your family. You always knew how to make family. It was a knack you had, always present, like the quick smile that was never far from your surprising face. If heaven is a reward, I cannot think how great yours will be. See you later, Carlita. Now, I must make my own cup of tea.