Sacred

I've decided to revisit a post from earlier in the week
about the twin-suicides of two dear friends a few years
ago. My friend Linda Ana posted this comment:

I am grateful to Mary's brother Mark for allowing friends
and neighbors to cope with the tremendous loss
before the structurally-challenged home of our dear ones
is sold, demolished, replaced with a generic 3-story townhouse.

This afternoon Reilly and I walked down to Pat and Mary's
house, and I took a few photos. Peering in the windows,
it felt a little like we were violating a sacred space:
everything seemed to be as it was at the time
of Mary's death. Here's a view looking in the kitchen:



It was eerie, yet comforting at the same time.
Here's another view, of the kitchen bay window:



Outside was a reliquary of weather-worn treasures;
I was reminded of the holy wells of Ireland, where devotees
leave a memento/offering to the saint the well honors.
All that's missing in Pat & Mary's yard is a little running water
from a sacred source. Perhaps it's there, maybe I didn't
look closely enough. Or perhaps it's just underfoot,
a secret grotto, a cavern.

Maybe it lies beneath these purple sequins....




The gargoyles give no clues....


The birdhouses/feeders are all empty, and the ribbons
supporting this one (roofed with a license plate)
are long-faded:



Altars abounded, of varying inspirations:




This one, to the Goddess of Dairy,
was missing a plant in the clay pot,
although the tulip tree has left pink offerings....


Painted stones,



painted antelope skull,



...and chimes that sound for no one
but el sol.


A few more icons:





And a perpetually-slumbering beast:



There is a lifetime of images here --
my children grew up with the love and friendship
of Pat & Mary, and although their departure is still
sharp-edged, they are very much alive
in memory, and in artifact.

After Pat's memorial, my boys and I came home
and stripped all the rose petals from our five bushes,
gathered them in silver bowls, and carried them
down the street, where we strewed them in a path
from the street to Mary's door: coral, cheek-pink,
artery-red.

I'll leave you with this last photo, a few lines
tacked to the siding on Pat & Mary's house: