Remembering

How to even say goodbye?

Dearest Chris,

The only way I can do this to pretend I just pulled up a stool in mom’s kitchen and am talking to you like I always did. And since I can’t even be there because of COVID, I am stuck with a letter.

I know that your huge, loving family is mourning your loss right now, and I wish them comfort and love and wonderful memories. If memory serves, you hated being in the spotlight (well, at least around me) but I hope you won’t mind my joining in.

You won’t like it when I say this but I have to — FUCK CANCER. Over and over and over again. Even though it will not bring you back.

Truth of the matter is that you were like a second mom. You were there for over 40 years of my 51. You’d seen every angsty pre-teen moment. You were there when I needed to vent. You were there to tell me I was wrong when I went too far. You were even there when my friends and I got into trouble (or had parties — hello) we didn’t want anyone else to know about.

I cannot believe you’re not still stalking me silently on Facebook (by the way, well played). I so wish you were still telling mom you already knew everything I was posting because you’d read it online first.

Your contagious laugh, that honeyed Trinidadian accent telling me “You know what to do”. How you made everything better and the world a little bit more just. If we could look outside the frame of every family photo, there is no question you’d be there.

As I was about to get married in 2001, you were in the middle of your first battle with cancer. I had moved out decades before, but we’d always be back in that kitchen when I came home. That day we talked a little about the craziness of wedding planning but then you stopped and looked me straight in the eye. With that Caribbean lilt more serious than I’d ever heard, you said “You know I am going to be there that day even if I have to crawl?”

I don’t pray, but I begged the universe to make that happen.

And there you were, fresh out of treatment. Smiling with love, proud as every other family member who attended (even if you all were shaking your head over the Renaissance theme). Having you there meant everything to me.

Well, as having you there always did.

Several years later when President Obama won the White House, I called you before anyone else. It was only for a few minutes, but we laughed and cried and talked excitedly about hope and love and new beginnings. Short of the newspaper proclaiming his win the next day — my birthday actually — talking to you that night is the best memory I have of that historical event.

Thank you for taking care of my parents for all those years I couldn’t be there. Even up until November when you’d bring fresh fruit to the house for dad for breakfast, talk politics with mom about the state of our world, and always spoil little Tucker the wonder dog, who loved you almost as much as we did.

But that’s what family does. And you were ours.

I always loved you to the depths of my soul, Chris. Now it’s your turn to pull up a stool in God’s kitchen and laugh and laugh and laugh with her.

— Eve