Afterword

My grandmother called to thank me for placing her dentures on her chest as they wheeled her out of the Catholic Hospice.

She said she didn’t think she’d need them, that I embarrassed her in the parking lot that night in May — forcing the driver from the funeral home to lift that velvet blanket — in the parking lot, in order to place her dentures, that my mother so carefully wrapped in paper, on her chest.

She said she enjoyed that I included the get well card that she never really got to see during those last three weeks, and that someone read it to her all the time now.

You really should have included the reading glasses, she said. That would have been useful.

She said not to worry, nothing hurt. She didn’t feel the flames… She knew we weren’t the types to visit headstones in some field.

It’s ok, really.

This is Fall, at 7:43 a.m., on 10/16/2020. Jamaica Plain, MA. (16/31)

“I love dream logic; I just like the way dreams go. But I have hardly ever gotten any ideas from dreams. I get more ideas from music, or just walking around.”

— David Lynch / Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity