I wish I could freeze time. It's been only two weeks since my mom passed away, but I have the unsettling feeling that she is drifting farther and farther away. I had the same feeling in June of 1992 after my dad died when we were taken by a boat outside Marina Del Rey to scatter his ashes, but in that situation we saw with our eyes the basket of ashes sinking, the bright red and pink flowers floating up, and the little group of birds that spontaneously circled around the flowers, floating with them like miniature feathered sentries.

Now that all the planning for her service, the exchanging of e-mails and scanning pictures has slowed down, a gray fog of emptiness has descended somewhere around my heart, or all over my "soul". I think of my soul as exactly that thing drawn on a chalkboard in first grade by my teacher, Sister Delores. Has any gringa other than me wondered if the name "Dolores" is meant as the Spanish word for pain or hurt, dolores? Catholics have never shied away from images of suffering in it's liturgy. Anyway, back to the soul thing. It was a rectangular diagram, slightly wider on top drawn with yellow chalk. She meant to illustrate "sin". She did it by scribbling all over the little soul diagram. She then told us about "confession". She picked up an eraser and erased the scribbled marks on the soul diagram to illustrate being cleansed of your sins. To this day I see that drawing when I think of my soul. Funny how those things are burned into our young minds when we are six years old and the subject is salvation.

I want to curl up like a pillbug and shut everything out.