This blog post was inspired by a writing exercise from Laurie Wagner’s Wild Writing online course. She read the poem The Little Details by Stephen Dunn to us as a prompt.
A woman can’t talk about her dead son everyday even though there is so much to tell. There’s a lot to tell about him and the way he smelled and the dimple in his cheek when he smiled.
She just can’t keep talking about how by the age of 16 he was the best sculptor/fabricator she had known and she had been an art major in college.
Surely she can’t mention how sweet he was and how when he was here the whole house had a glow about it, a softness, a gentleness, and rolling laughter too.
She can’t mention that even when he was fighting cancer and even when it was terminal, it was better than this.
She can’t mention that she both hates and misses the hospital and the routines they had together. Those were some of her favorite times with him because she had him all to herself. They had their jokes that only they knew.
She can’t talk about his room and how it’s a museum now. She never brings up all of his creations that sit there in suspended animation waiting for their creator to return.
She doesn’t tell anyone that she goes into his closet and hugs his shirts and hoodies hoping to catch the scent of him.
She never mentions that she keeps his first teddy bear and the owl stuffed animal she bought him in the hospital on her bed.
No one knows that the outfit he wore to the last presentation he gave in eighth grade days before he was diagnosed with cancer sits folded on the bookshelf in her room.
She never talks about these things because she can’t. Who wants to hear them? Life is supposed to be neater than this, more organized, more predictable. There is supposed to be triumph at the end of the struggle, not more struggle. Who wants to hear about that?
