 "It was a morning with a soft wetness..."  Kala Oboi Weaver. It was a morning with a soft wetness slowly lifting away. We were staying in a bed and breakfast in central New Jersey, a community full of horse farms, when the phone call came. The proprietors, a husband and wife, were more than gracious, the wife explaining when we arrived the night before that her husband loved poetry. He loved it and he loved writing it. They even had a signed copy of a book by a poet I knew, and they asked about my work. As the phone call came, I was signing a copy of Spirit Boxing as a donation to their collection. The voice was shrill and barely distinguishable, that of one of my sisters delivering the news of our son, Kala’s death. The Yoruba prayer I included in "The Ten Lights of God," hoping Kala would be the one to pray over my body in its stillness, became a prayer God chose not to answer, for reasons I may never know: “May I know the blessing of being buried by my son.” After talking with my sister, I walked out to our car, and saw several of my neighbors' horses grazing quietly in the pasture. They were so serene. The sky was full, but not threatening. The grayness was too quiet, though. Kristen and I were immediately devastated, and I was in no shape to drive. Kristen got us back to our little farmhouse in the Hudson Valley, shrouded with trees and marked with stone gardens in a Zen motif. The morning birdsong mesmerized. We were on the return leg of a trip we took to Cambridge, Maryland, to the annual conference of the Maryland Library Association, where I gave a talk on the importance of libraries to me as a child growing up in Baltimore, after receiving the Maryland Author Award. Native Son Like me, Kala was a native son of Baltimore. In his forty nine years, he made good use of books as he found them necessary. They were not always what he was supposed to read, and one need not go far to guess where he got that trait. He read the Tolkien books when he was nine years old, and had a broad and independent mind, traits that I am sure he gave to his two children. My son was a big man, standing 6' 6" tall. He was a strong, young man, full of love. He worried about me, though, as he saw me pursuing my own happiness. He even moved to Boston in 2000, hoping both our lives would improve. In 2016, Kristen and I began our relationship. Kala called one day that spring to congratulate me. He told me: “You are whole now, Daddy. This is so much better.”  Moving in: Kala, Kristen, and me. Kala's words: "You are whole now, Daddy," comfort me. Transitions In February 2018, we moved into this farmhouse, just thirty-five minutes across the state line from where we lived in West Cornwall, Connecticut. Kala helped us, using the expertise he gained from years of working as a mover. He loved riding on the trucks that sometimes took him across the country, and I think of him now as traveling, and I think of him as an old, treasured friend. Kala was born in my first marriage, where his mother, Ms. Eleanora Dent, and I lost his older brother, Michael Jr., to Down Syndrome. Kala was a father, a son, a stepson, a step brother, an uncle, a cousin, a nephew a trusted friend, and loved one too many people. His funeral took place in Miller’s Metropolitan Chapel in Baltimore, owned by my cousin Geff Miller. It was a private service for family and old friends. There was not an empty chair in the room. His memorial service was full of people, some of whom I have known since they were born. Kala’s maternal cousins, loved him dearly. Two of them, Kevin and Ray, gave moving remarks as they cried. My son had several health issues, but slipped away quietly in his sleep on the morning of May 6th, three days before the anniversary of my father’s passing in 2003, nineteen years earlier. His grandfather’s passing prompted him to return to Baltimore. Kala was with his son, and his son’s Mom in their home in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, when Kristen and I last saw him in September, 2021. Love Is the Fullness "I look up and see him, or I think of how much I love him, how deeply." We move slowly through the days now, doing things more intuitively. Several times a day I look up at places in the house where he stood when he helped us move, or when he brought his family to visit us on Thanksgiving in 2019, after our honeymoon in Taiwan. I look up and see him, or I think of how much I love him, how deeply. The love is the fullness that keeps the hollow feeling of loneliness from spinning me out into space, disentangled from all that keeps us from entering into that emptiness and fullness that is the other side of things. My faith is such that God is love.
Kala slept away just around sunrise on that morning of May 6th, to fly back into that divine essence, and the news of his transition was caught in that mystical moment of stepping out onto the porch and seeing the horses grazing in the misty air of divine grace. The magic of horses continues to fill our lives. 🌸🌿🌹🌸🌿🌷🌸🌿🌷🌸🌿🌷 Donations in remembrance of Kala O. Weaver may be made to: Mother Seton Academy Sister Margaret A. Juskelis, SSND President 2215 Greenmount Avenue Baltimore, MD 21218 410-563-2833, ext 228 Email mjuskelis@mothersetonacademy.org Cave Canem Poets cavecanempoets.org Obsidian Literary Magazine https://obsidianlit.org |
