Lynette Lamp: SAM'S QUIET GOODBYE • Cleaver Magazine

Flash Nonfiction by Lynette Lamp
SAM’S QUIET GOODBYE

In Japanese legend, a person who folds one thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. My oldest child, the quiet one, folded cranes in their room during the long weekend at our farm where we buried a favorite pet. It was easier to fold paper in their room than talk about things with us. Silence is always easier for Sam, despite being a linguist and fluent in multiple languages. I have no idea what Sam wishes for. I wish for Sam to be happy.

Sam is “they” now. When Sam came out, they told me, “I always knew I was this way, but now I have words for it.” They’ve traded long hair for short, any frills for a shirt and tie. My love hasn’t changed, but there is a loss of something I thought was true.

Sam and their sister tell me to watch my pronouns. I’m trying. But I remember English teachers insisting “they” is a plural pronoun, so I’m off-kilter on the verbs. My mother has been gone for a few years, but my father always says “they,” as in “they got back late” or “they had a great trip.” He means it in the plural sense, as if Mom is still with him. It is hard to be an “I” when you’ve been a “they” for such a long time. It is hard to be alone. I know Sam feels very alone after this latest loss. By their own admission, Sam has deeper feelings for animals than people. Maybe because pets have always accepted Sam just as they are.

The burial is not a good time to mention they are wearing my gloves. The ones with the big L I wrote with permanent marker on the back. Not for “left,” but the first initial of my name so that no one else would mess with them. The ones now caked with mud. Sam had dug a three-foot-deep hole to accommodate a tiny guinea pig, a pet who loved them through a pandemic and college graduation, one that had barely hung on for a few weeks in their new place in Washington, DC. We collected the small body on a visit, and it had been kept in a coffee can in our freezer until Sam could get back to the farm.

They place the can deep in the earth and lift the shovel, then put the shovel back down. Sam stoops to the pile of dirt and hand-scoops the entire pile into the hole. Their father, who almost always does the right thing, bends down to help. Sam arranges the rocks to mark the grave, piles them up over the grave.

Someday it will be time to scatter my ashes. I don’t want a marker. There won’t be any holes dug. But it would be nice to be remembered for a few moments like this, surrounded by those that love me. Sam asked me after the burial, in a new lower voice I have trouble hearing, if I wanted to make an origami crane. They misinterpreted my hesitancy as avoidance and turned away before I could ask what they said. Sam disappeared for the afternoon. I worried the whole time they were gone, but they eventually returned with meadow flowers for the stone-covered grave. Maybe a marker isn’t such a bad idea.

I never did learn to fold a crane that weekend, but Sam left me ten of them perched across the top of a thick picture frame that hangs in their room. I found the folded birds after they left, brightly colored, peering down over the desk. A great start—only 990 to go.

Lynette’s poems have been published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), Annals of Internal Medicine, The Pharos, Dermanities, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Healing Muse, Pulse, and The Louisville Review. She is working on a collection of personal essays and attempting to publish her poetry manuscript, Standard of Care. She currently lives in Iowa where she draws inspiration from the land as well as her medical practice to fuel her writing. Please visit her at lynettelamp.com.