Dreamspace Studio

I didn’t neglect her in life.

I stayed. 
I watched. 
I held her when she could no longer leap. 
I wiped her clean when her body forgot how. 
I crushed pills into gravy and whispered love into every bowl. 
I chose her over freedom. Over travel. Over rest. 
And I would again.

I won’t neglect her in death.

She came home in a velvet bag. 
She rests in a box carved with flowers, and her name is written in wood. 
Her spirit lives on my altar. 
Her story lives in my voice. 
Her name lives in the mouth of everyone who ever loved her, including strangers who now grieve with me.

I lit the candles. 
I wrote the words. 
I remembered.

She is gone, but I am not. 
So I will carry her love forward. 
I will keep her in the rhythm of memory. 
I will protect what she meant to me.

This is not the end of devotion. 
This is the shape devotion takes when the body is no longer present.

I didn’t neglect her in life. 
And I won’t in death.