Your cat might do this. Or your dog. Might be your ferret or monkey. In a weird way, it might be your husband or wife. Your kid does it. Kids have these smooth brains that aren’t cluttered with 40 years of Top 40, nattering nonsense or the News of the Day… When I pack a bag to go someplace, Our cat Frankie likes to sit inside of it as I dump my gonch and toiletries into it. I try to placate him with treats and snuggles.  He’s got this sense about him. He knows I’m going somewhere and look, I don’t know how the minds of cats or animals work but I know that when I pack my bag, bring it downstairs, and the garage door opens he’s a little frantic. I try to assure him verbally that I won’t be gone long, but he’s only two, so his English Comprehension is questionable. There might be a long time until that garage door opens again. When it does, it’s totally Pavlovian. He knows I’m back, shakes off his 18 hour slumber and he’s at the top of the motherfucking stairs yowling like a raccoon. Boy do I get lovin’ then. It might be three, maybe seven, maybe ten days, but my return is heralded with meows and kisses and a joy for both of us that we do our best, in our own shells, to express. What I feel like sometimes is when he hears that garage door open when I’m leaving, even if it’s just down to the corner store on my skateboard to get a soda pop, does he wonder whether that that garage door is ever going to open again… Or does he think once it closes that he may never again hear that sound? Does he think I’m Gone Forever? 

My Rotten Kid and I have this thing that we do… When I drop a quarter or lose the cap of of the toothpaste… The lid off of some spices or condiment in the kitchen and it dances across the floor into some recess betwixt appliances. “GONE FOREVER!” We’ll shout. Some errant chit from an event or an earbud falls into the yawning cavernous depths between the passenger seat and the console “GONE FOREVER!” A knife slides off of a plate on the way to the dishwasher hits the floor, spattering filth, still CLEARLY VISIBLE, gleaming and mustardy on the hardwood. We’ll still mutter in unison, GONE FOREVER.

Even as it falls. 

I’ve written about this trip in this space before, but if you’re at my house, you can plug Trail BC, where Momma lived, into your preferred map app and it’ll tell you 7 hrs 1m. This trip is hardwired in my brain, as it is in my younger brother Cameron’s. There is an eidetic map we both follow along the HWY3 Crowsnest pass that allows us to leave at the optimum time and make it there in 6:30. I’d gamble we can both do parts of it with our eyes closed. I think Cam has made it in 6:25 but I’m pretty sure his Malibu had a HEMI. 

Before she finally passed from complications due to her multiple myeloma, My Momma was in and out of the hospital three times in six weeks. I raced back to Trail the first and second time she went in. The second time she came out of care, she told me “The next time I come back here I’m just not gonna come out.” The pain was just too great. Third time she went in, I think I had some moronic trade show or travelling for work on the Monday following. Whatever…. For some weird reason the third time, around noon on a Sunday, I’m all like “Well let’s just see what happens…”  Like a moron. 7:30. My younger brother calls me and says, “We lost Mom. I could have made it.

Now, I  don’t want you to think I harbour any guilt for not being there during her last moments. Like no two people on this planet, she and I knew where we stood with one another. That is sacrosanct. Well before the garage door closed on her days for the last time, she told me. She told me she wasn’t coming back. I’m unsure as to what silly church you couch your faith in, but in a succinct a way as one facing death would, my Momma told me she was gonna be GONE FOREVER.

Even as she fell.

I’ll tell you my one regret: I know what she would’ve said to me had she been able to. Had I been there for her last moments. She she would’ve said “I just hope I did a good job with you kids…”

I’d have responded to that concern she’s had since fucking forever. I’d have held her hand and said,

“Momma, nobody’s ever done it better.”