I Was Here

I have the habit of singing made up songs in the house. They are totally improvised, often rhyming, and about anything: a remix to Sza’s “Saturn” about overcooked chicken, Beyonce’s “Ya Ya,” but about the noise from the remodel a couple floors up. This time, I sang a sad song about cancer and dying. I sing to the dog as she sits between my legs, getting ready for our walk. I don’t remember the lyrics or the tune, but the song ended with a tearful, “save me.” As I looked into Bobbie’s eyes, my eyes welled up. She returns my gaze, a deep stare. And farts.

I search for meaning everywhere now, heightened as my senses are to my expiring clock. Sometimes a dog fart is just that, gas, symbolizing nothing. In light of cancer and this season of intense reflection that it has inspired, I see a lesson about detachment. In the face of my tragedy, life carries on. And soon, it will carry on without me. My loved ones will carry on, students will get on with their course work, trash removal will still come every two weeks, landscapers will continue to sweep their blowers across sidewalks, my family will still celebrate Christmas, my partner will, eventually, love again. I’ll press my ashes into keepsakes to be distributed to those that I hope will remember me. I’ll become an airbrushed image on a tee shirt, dated 1983 to when? Someone will board a boat and remember that I loved being on the water. Sza will play at a restaurant and my partner will cry at dinner with a new love. They will be solid, and I will melt into air.

My best self wants all of this for all of them, of course. They are not sick. They are not dying. They deserve to live their lives to the fullest, as I have strived to live mine. And still, I can barely comprehend this eventuality. As my loved ones get on with it, I hope that they will stumble on my memory, pause, scrape a knee, fall to the earth, and remember that I was here.