On the account of my brother’s marriage

We’re standing inside the airport near the check-in line and my father is retrieving something we forgot in the car,

My grandparents are sitting while we wait and I’m distracted by a bird flitting between sky lights.

I watch it with worry, without meaning, constructing a metaphor of sorts or a personification.

I can hear it chirping and I wonder aloud whether there is a position of some kind within the airport to guide it back into the sky.

My grandparents do not notice my question, I do not fault them with this because I can speak softly and as a middle child I have grown accustomed to dialogue with myself.

Later,

When we’ve settled for breakfast before the flight I notice a second bird and I wonder to myself how many are required for a motif.

I cannot ascertain what species it may be so the further meaning alludes me.

When my grandmother noticed this bird I express my worry once more,

“It must be able to find its way out,” she reassures. 

“I don’t think so, it must be so confused with all the windows. It does not know what is real and what is not,”I say.

My grandfather nods and it feels like some sort of an affirmation.

While enroute to Virginia,

I read Joan Didion’s “Blue Nights.”

It is her first piece that I’ve read in entirety and i found myself thinking years later that I could remark, “At least he gave me Joan.”

It feels like a defeat 

There is so much more I had wanted.

I think about myself cross legged on his floor telling him that when we were separated one of many times I was reminded of a quote she had written upon her husband’s death, “I remember thinking I need to discuss this with John.”

Sitting crammed into an airport seat,

I resonated with her grief.

I hold such familiarity with feelings of grief despite having no significant deaths in my 26 years of life.

Writing that, I remember my cousin who died just a year ago.

I didn’t know him well,

But my grandmother consistently brings up his name in conversation. Speaks of him in the present tense.

Someone once said that grief is loving persisting,

I do not know what that means when all those I grieve are still alive.

While aboard the plane, I check the model and airplane we are flying on. 

“I need to discuss this with John.”

When we de-board the plane,

My father carries his suitcases and my grandparents

I carry my brother’s backpack and my luggage.

A woman remarks “are all those really your carry-ons?”

I respond on my father’s account, “we’re both carrying things on others’ behalf.”

I try not to construct another metaphor.

When we find our rental car,

There is a bird outside amid the cherry blossoms singing. Is three enough for a motif?

The last time I was in D.C. was for a prestigious fellowship the summer following my junior year,

My boyfriend had just graduated and invited me to his family’s trip to Hawaii.

I’ve still never been to Hawaii.

Choices, choices.

When my brother told me he planned on proposing over the phone,

He asked if I would be okay.

He asked if I felt left behind.

Of course — I reassured him that I did not.

It is funny how time moves along,

How I remember this

And also a month later how you had showed up at my door after months of silence.

Despite this, I fell into you as I always do and relayed all that you had missed in a whisper. 

I am remembering again,

The last time I saw my mother.

He and I — a different him and a different I — spoke on the phone briefly when I returned home.

I told him that I was fine,

And he knew that I was not.

But we were separate

In so many ways 

Distance and other

So neither of us pushed the issue.

I remember her telling me “I love you.”

She had waited for the congregation to fill before cornering me.

I could not help but laugh when I told her “you do not,” before crawling over a church pew around her.

Now on all my reflection,

The phrase still lingers.

“I need to discuss this with John.”