... and then the phone rings.

While I was making dinner, the phone rang; I let it go to the answering machine. Charlie the cat hates the answering machine, so when I tried to listen to the message later, he pounced on the device and deleted the message with his nose after it got as far as "This is the Randall's pharmacy--"

"Cat!" I yelled at him.

"Meow."

I huffed off to the kitchen, found one of Savannah's old prescription bottles (which has the pharmacy phone number on it) lying in the cupboard and called them back. They wanted to tell me something about Savannah's Ortho Evra. I politely stopped the technician from going further into her explanation.

"She passed away this year," I said.

"Oh, I'm so very sorry," the woman said. I heard dread in her voice. She needed to ask me more questions and didn't want to. "Was she sick?"

"No."

A long pause.

She continued, "I'm very sorry, sir, we didn't know."

"It's okay, This is part of what we do afterwards," I said.

(c) 2015 David Borden
By this point, I had slumped into a lounge chair. The prescription bottle still in one hand, the phone in the other.

"I have to close her records out," she said sadly. "Can you tell me the date she died?"

"I can't remember right, now. Can you give me a minute to think."

I closed my eyes and thought about the day. How we discovered her. How it was cold. How the sky sparkled with an endless blue. What day was that? A sadness crept over me. What was the date? Have I already forgotten? I opened my eyes and let intuition talk.

"March 5th,"

I don't think I shall ever forget that day.

After I hung up. I placed a sad Haydn record on the turntable, slid headphones over my ears, and lay on the sofa for a while.

I don't think I shall ever forget that day.


#mourning #specialneeds #pharmacy #parenting #grief #grieving

Comments

  1. I've had good days and bad days
    And going half mad days
    I try to let go but you're still on my mind
    ...
    If it takes all the future
    We'll live through the past
    If the phone doesn't ring, it's me

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven't thought of that song in many years. By the way, it was good to see you. I was amazed and touched you made the trip. It is times like these that we come to know our real friends. Thank you.

      Delete

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