When I put the phone down
-metaphorically speaking.  Actually-
When I pushed the red button, I thought to myself, "well, that's finally over and everything happened just as it should and when it should.  First ones first is the way it should be.  One less thing to keep me up at night."

The second thing I thought was, "it will be my turn next.  My turn to bury my parents.  And their brothers and sister.  As long as everything continues to go as it should.  Second ones second."

Then, "I'm part of the third.  I hope the third ones go third.  I can't bear to think about the fourth ones going third.  Or, godforbid, second.  But none of us went first."

None of us I remember.  My aunt and uncle buried a daughter hours after she was born.  She was alive and then she just, wasn't, anymore.  But I was little and I don't remember so in my mind we are all falling right as we should.

***

It's not easy to hang up the phone on someone who just told you they lost their mother.  Especially when it's your dad on the line.  It makes you wonder who's going to call about these matters next time.  One of the cousins, maybe?  A brother?  All of my grandparents are gone. 
Life, as it does, will most likely chip away at their children next.

It doesn't seem real.

In my mind, my aunts and uncles and parents are my age.  When I think of them, I think of the way they were when I was a kid.  The way they were when they were thirty something.  It shocks me to see them in real life.  Funerals tend to show them to me in real life.  All in one place.  Aged.  Timed.  Laced.  Fine.

That doesn't make sense.  Don't try to figure it out, I stole it from a Rod Stewart song.  "ageless, timeless, lace and fineness".

You're welcome for that.

So, now my four biological grandparents are dead.  The people who made the people who made me.  The people who never yelled at me or beat me or shamed me but somehow magically got me to behave and strive and try.  Never again will I be in a compromising situation and be stricken with "if I die here I wonder what my grandparents will think?".  I don't have anyone left in the world to hide my tattoos from.  I don't have the world's oldest living grandma anymore for anyone to "holy crap/ohmygod/wow" over anymore.  Practically the world's oldest.  Like, top oldest 5% probably.  My heart won't stop every time I get a phone call or email from my dad.  I won't have to wonder when it will happen anymore.  Won't have to wonder if my grandma will outlive her children.

Now I will sit and wait for the guilt to settle in.  The voices that tell me I should have called, should have written, should have visited.  Should have sent pictures, should have had Jake color something, should have called the social worker to make sure all was well.  Should have, could have, would have.  We all know this routine.  Until the guilt settles in I will enjoy the release.  The respite.  The relief.  The peace of knowing that she is no longer suffering.  Take comfort in the fairy tale ending, the one where she is once again with her husband and her parents, her old friends and her brothers and sister.  Her sister who died before she knew her.  That it's her time to reap and heal and laugh and build up and dance and gather stones.  To embrace and get and keep and speak and love.  Her time to find her purpose (up in) heaven.

As it goes.

***

I'm not sure if I believe that when we die we float up and get to spend forever with everyone we ever knew and loved and eat manna and understand all of life's mysteries, but I like to think that at the very least a tiny piece of ourselves- some of our essence or soul or spirit- leaves our body and races into the universe in search of a tiny piece of those we spent time with here and those tiny pieces travel into eternity together, positively charged and brightly lit and blissfully connected as they dance and sing and laugh and spiral into forever and ever.  I like to think that the rest of what makes us, us- the energy that made our hearts beat and our hands touch and our feet carry us where we are needed most- goes into the trees and the flowers and the grass and the earth and into the breath of new babies and the chirps of the birds and the cold wet noses of puppies and the shine of the stars and makes everything grow and flourish and twinkle and carry on a bit of beauty and love and light in our memory.