Memorial to Loss: August 1-8 2024
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the mass shooting that occurred in Dayton, Ohio, as well as the dedication of a memorial to that event and those lost and affected by it. For this week’s assignment, write poetry or prose that serves as a memorial to someone you lost or others that have been lost or affected by an event.
The Submissions:
“Now Departing” - by Journal Kurtz
Now Departing
When my mom can’t sleep,
she packs an imaginary suitcase,
always moving in her mind,
pining for the next vacation.
Not sure if I will see the change
of seasons, I stare into the empty,
satin-lined case for inspiration.
Her lungs cannot take any more
compression of altitude, so
she no longer flies, freed from
any size restrictions for the journey.
I start with winter boots, for
the snow-coming months and
slippers for pretense of comfort.
She mentally packs her favorite pillow
and lavender eye mask, hoping
for salty-aired sleep. There is no way
to know where she is going next,
My mom and I were the same
size once, so I don’t bother to bring
sweaters or sneakers or coats.
but she thinks of sandals for one more
walk along the beach, her orange
cover-up billowing
a coral silhouette behind her.
I pack lotion to coax her toes uncurled,
to massage muscles hanging like laundry
when pain convulses her wracked frame.
She refuses to include the 8-foot
tubing which tethers her
to electric bellows, but she can’t
ignore the mechanical sighing.
I pack granola she won’t eat and
essays I won’t grade for the weeks
between the dying and the death.
It reminds her to pack earplugs
in case the hotel is near a road
or the neighbors decide to party
like there is no tomorrow.
I pack black.
by Heart of Darkness
Loss.
This picture was taken six years and four days ago in Chicago. It was a trip we took because we knew it was going to be our last trip. We planned for what felt like ever, but also seemed urgent. Boston was too far away. She wasn't sure she could make it to the beach. I felt like every day and every week we didn't have a hotel booked was another day closer to us not being able to go at all. We settled on a few days in Chicago where, if she could, she would go out to eat and go see Hamilton, but mostly we knew she would sleep in a hotel bed and this would be it. She had been diagnosed nine months prior with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. It's a diagnosis that makes everyone cringe when they ask. There's never good news with pancreatic cancer and there's really never good news when it's Stage 4.
Six weeks after this photo, after Chicago, she was in the hospital. It wasn't shocking. Blood counts were low, infection was taking over, and she had decided a life on high doses of chemo was hardly worth continuing. We asked them to remove her port. We asked them to start palliative care. We discussed the pros and cons of a feeding tube. I read and drew while sitting in hospital chairs for hours on end. We raced to Zombie Dogs in the brief moments where she decided she could eat. We watched TV.
Two months after this photo, after Chicago, she was in Hospice. She was fighting to remain independent, insisting that she was going to get well enough to go back home and receive in-home Hospice care. She still insisted on changing her clothes herself or showering alone. Last attempts at pretending it was all normal. I read and drew while sitting in Hospice chairs for hours on end. We raced to DLM in the brief moments she decided pie and ice cream were acceptable dinners. We watched endless news coverage about Brett Kavanaugh. We brought the dog to Hospice for what we suspected, what we knew, were final visits.
By October she was gone. She never made it home from Hospice. She insisted on no obituary, no funeral. Just that she wanted her ashes scattered in the mountains and on the beach. In the months after she passed, the world in Dayton seemed to crumble. They closed roads and fenced off parts of downtown, where we live, because nine KKK members showed up to spew hate. Tornadoes came eerily close to her house and flattened elementary schools and homes in the district where I grew up, in the district where she cried about sending me to kindergarten. A half mile from our downtown home, down the street from where she worked my whole childhood, a man shot and killed people on the street for reasons I still don't know, or don't understand, but relive every time I walk on 5th Street. Every time something new happened we would say, "It's good she's not here." I lived my day-to-day. I went on work trips. I left my apartment. I forgot the "right way" to fold towels because my brain was so scattered. But with every bit of bad news, every sad thing that happened to, and in, Dayton, every tumultuous moment that warranted an emergency response, we assured ourselves it was better she didn't have to see it. It was better that she's not here.
“Fill in the Blank” - by Captain Quillard
Fill in the blank.
This is the protocol now, so
let’s not stop to ask why or
how it’s supposed to help
or if it’s somehow more true
of your town than it was of
all the others –
Don’t waste your time thinking
about if it’s how you actually
feel
or how anyone should feel under the
circumstances – Things like
“if” and “should”
don’t really apply anymore, do they? So just
fill in the blank –
Add the name of your city
right here in this space – there
on that blank line just before the word
“Strong”
There you go.
Fill it out like some kind of platitudinal
Mad Lib or
sterile form letter
mimeographed in
mass quantities for mass shootings –
mail-merged to find and insert the name of
the next town
then the next
and the next
and the next city in need of a well-meaning but
empty rallying cry –
a slogan
for T-shirts and memorial shrines,
rubber bracelets and talking points for the media descended on the town like buzzards –
staying only long enough to
pick the carcass clean –
for politicians and commissions and musicians and morticians
banners and billboards and candles and consolations
Fill in the blank:
We are Dayton Strong.
We are Dayton and Uvalde and Buffalo and El Paso and Parkland and Vegas and Orlando and Lewiston and Blacksburg and Pittsburg and Boulder and Columbine and Newtown Strong, but that doesn’t fit
on a T-shirt,
so we’ll pretend it’s never happened
to anyone else; that no town has the grit and community and support and
strength
that we have – we are unique and special and we are
Dayton Strong
We are Dayton Strong
because we are not allowed to be
Dayton Shattered.
Dayton Devastated.
Dayton Traumatized.
Dayton Hopeless.
Dayton Reeling and Angry and Missing Our Loved Ones and Faithless in Our Leaders and Tired and Hurting and Begging Someone to “Do Something” and Sick to Death of this Shit and Unwilling to Accept this as Normal but Numb Because We Know It Is Now.
Dayton Numb.
Numb and resigned and having to
continue on like nothing happened,
which is what passes for Strong these days, so
fill in the blank:
We are Dayton Strong.
Not because we should be –
Not because we are –
But because we have to be
There are blanks within us now that
can never be filled
So we may as well fill the only one being offered –
Add our name to the list.
Follow the protocol.
Print the merchandise.
Resign. Submit. Abandon Hope. Go Numb.
Fill in the blank:
Dayton Strong.
Next Week’s Assignment:
The Olympics will come to a close this week, and the flag will be handed off to the next host city. Pretend that, instead of Los Angeles, the 2028 Summer Olympics are coming to a town of your choosing - your current town, the town you grew up in, somewhere you love to visit, etc. Design the official Olympic logo for the 2028 games in your chosen town.