Letters to Franz Kafka

Two

2006-12-08T08:40:00.001-08:00

Medusa

2006-12-07T14:52:00.001-08:00

Jaunuary 6

This day four years ago,
my mother died.

Last night, I saw you, Medusa, in a documentary on the History Channel
concerning your adoption of a baby.
You look so kind, even pretty, on the television
but I know that inside you, you
have a small black shriveled up heart;
your eyes are full of nothingness; or
rather full of only yourself,
which is the same thing.

What exactly did I do to you that you shouted at me
and made up silly rules regarding the care of my mother
when I was grieving her dying?

Why did you yell and bully my mother
during the last days of her life?

Did you get your full revenge
when you bent over Mom’s sickbed,
like an incubus
sucking up
the last dregs of oxygen from her dying lips?

Are you happy having achieved your vengeance?

Did you tell her when she was too ill to defend herself that you had won?

Did you really get even?

Did you say all the hateful things to her
that you were afraid to say
when she was well enough to defend herself?

I marvelled at your coprophagic grin
as you anticipated all your poisonous ideas
for the manipulation of the dying
and for the manipulation of the death
of my mother.

You were in charge. Brava!!

Did you get the satisfaction you craved?
Was it worth it?

You know, and I know,
that my mother did not want you to take care of her because she knew better than anyone what you were and
what you would do.

Did you not contemplate
just for
a
moment
that you might leave my mother alone to die peacefully,
which is what she wanted?

Or are sympathy, empathy and pity a foreign language to you?

Medusa, you cannot erase my stepfather’s name from Mom’s headstone!
You cannot remake my history no matter how much you try.
You can’t erase the 63 years that I spent as the focus of my mother’s life.

She loved me more than anyone else, yes, even your ridiculous father, and she told me so.

Was that your motivation for your hatefulness?

You could not get love from my mother unless you also showed it.

My mother loved you when you were a small child.

She still would have loved you
except you are incapable of that emotion.

You cannot make people love you by controlling
and
manipulating them.

Vengeance is a hollow victory because it shows the avenger,
not your victims,
in the worst light.

Your own dead mother would have been appalled to see what kind person her daughter turned out to be.

You are a poor sad excuse for a person and I have the gravest pity for you, Medusa.

Cremation

2006-12-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

During my last illness, you sat on my bed, dear child,
and I told you about my funeral:
I wanted all my artificial flowers
spread about the church, the flowers whose vases I had created--
There must have been more than three dozen of them.
I visualized these flowers because it was wintertime and the garden was desolate.

I said to you then that if I looked okay after death, I could have an open casket; otherwise,
I wished to be cremated.
You asked me if my husband had chosen a burial plot and I guessed that he had.
(He never thought of such a thing, ever, in his lifetime!)

But, of course, in reality the stepdaughter took over everything, did exactly what she wanted without consulting anyone.
I understand why you didn't attend my church ceremony--to go would have been like pretending that all my husband's family were so innocent, sitting there
in the church of God,
pure and sweet.

What a load of bullshit!!

So the moment my spirit was free, I looked down and saw the caregivers take off my ring (the one I had bought for myself because he couldn't bear to spend cash for something so useless!!!) and I saw the oxygen tube and tank removed.
The bag and tubes to my bladder were taken away.
My ravaged body was moved to a funeral home in preparation for the crematorium's work.
Then my pacemaker was removed from my chest.
They searched my empty mouth but my false teeth were still in the care facility bathroom (too bad someone couldn't use them now).
My body was prepared for the burning.
I wondered where my glasses were.

I saw the fire melt my hair--the hair you had so carefully pin curled a few days ago: first one side then the other when I turned over.
My features all melded together.

In a few minutes, I was cleansed and fired into ashes.

I know you visualized all this, and that it is your way of caring.
No one else has an imagination like yours.
My cooled ashes were removed and placed in a black urn awaiting the next step.

I watched this all without emotion knowing I would soon find out who cared (as if I didn't already know!)

My ashes sat for three months and only my husband could say what should be done with them.

Finally, you, my girl, were given my ashes under the condition that you pay for
the urn and the transportation and any other expenses.
So his penuriousness worked to your advantage, finally.

And now I see that you have markers in the cemetery, one for each of the three of us, we who started as a family of three and ended as a family of three.

Thank you for caring.
You did well, my only living child.

Sadness

2006-12-05T05:42:00.000-08:00

My dear one, I thought I had lost you as my amanuensis,
but here you are again.

Be not sad: I'll tell you what my heaven is like--
nothing that I had imagined when I was alive.

It seems as though the amount of sadness on earth
is balanced by content here:
I can conjure up those I love; leave behind others at will.

Those things that I want are near at hand and I can see you on earth,
but can't effect anything there.

My son is ever present and he is wonderful--we both watch you and hope you will
do what has to be done.

We rejoice when you are happy.

Death

2006-12-04T12:13:00.000-08:00

I died shortly after reaching 83 years
in a room where my third husband
and his daughter roamed about,
patiently waiting for me to draw my last breath
so that they could go on with their lives.

They wondered why it took so long for me to die;
I finally wanted to please them and take my leave; but, oh,
I longed to see my birth daughter one more time!

She said that she couldn't be in the same room with
his daughter because she was so domineering, so in need of control, yet so out of control.

When I realized that I wouldn't see her again, I breathed my last.
I promised her that I would come in a mist to earth to see her again.

She has to be open to that.

Everything is sad now.