I am Roni, Melanie’s sister, and she was my witness through her whole life, as I was hers.
I wrote this to her, although I could never say it to her, before she died.
But before I say that, I want to say Leslie, I am so grateful to you. She got such care, and she said, “Leslie always rescues me.” And, to Christine, if you are here, I’m very grateful to her. As Melanie was dying, Christine was stroking her fingers and humming to her.
Here is what I wrote.
Melanie, I know you can’t speak, beyond yes, no, not really, and I know you have thoughts and can’t quite coordinate them with your mouth to speak, and I know you must feel strange in one way or another, and I am not, of course, sure of how all that settles down or if it doesn’t, and I can’t even believe what is happening, though I am trying to accept more of what is happening, which makes me feel terrible—how can I accept the total loss of your agency and that you may not be here for too much longer—even to say that, to write it, is too terrible.
I miss your beautiful smile, your so expressive eyes, your amazingly wry and hilarious sense of humor, your love, the fun we had. I miss all the things we shared, so much, so much trust, our whole childhoods, even as they were different—me inside the fish bowl, you outside. Either, devastating.
I still remember you sneaking into the bathroom in the hospital where I had just given birth, so you could stay longer than the visiting hours; and how you told me after a bad breakup—you’ll never feel this bad again—and I didn’t, until now.
Just to demonstrate her brilliance, this may be the last poem that Melanie ever published, or maybe wrote.
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PD and the b-side
In the music industry, the b-side is the filler, the side that exists to fill out the a-side, make it a whole. For me it has come to represent what might happen.
The a- side is normal, safety, a fairly low-risk life, but bonded always to the b-side waiting to happen. On the a-side, for example, I cross the street. But on the b-side, I walk in front of a speeding car.
Maybe if I’m alert I can elude the b-side but it is waiting.
And PD is Parkinson’s Disease. I have PD. The b-side is PD waiting to happen. When I’m out walking Ruby the dog, the b-side slithers in close with its snake breath and as I approach the 94th St stairs, kind of isolated now that I think of it, I can smell the b-side, in this case two young men fixed on me and Ruby with violence in their hearts, if you can call those things hearts
but as fear swoons in my stomach so I nearly pitch forward off the bridge, a new b-side rises up, a young Asian man with punk hair,
My father has Parkinson’s, he says kindly, When were you diagnosed?
I turn back up Corona, where a-side Ruby pulls me off balance in her passion for breadcrumbs. Whereas b-side Ruby jerks so hard I fall, maybe even into the line of traffic, while her pronged collar– like you’d put on a Rottweiler only Ruby weighs less than 35 pounds and still the collar does not control her– she pulls so hard a prong punctures her carotid artery and sudden blood splashes brilliant against her black coat. An anarchist dog bleeding out.
On the a-side I might trip and fall down or upstairs. But on the b-side I stumble against the table so everyone’s drink spills, crash into my students’ desks so we topple over and I am on top, my bladder or sphincter loosens and shit or piss squeezes out. I am smelly and shamed. I drool, I twitch.
On the a-side my left hand flutters, my vision doubles, but my face with its 17 muscles to mark my response, my history, is my own.
On the b-side my face is a stone. I am locked inside my stone face.
Or I am dangerous and endangered. On the a-side I drive with my left hand fluttering from time to time. On the b-side out of control I drive into the path of a huge semi that crushes my car, leaving me miraculously alive, unhurt
even though I just lied, I was not out of control, a truck hit me and it had nothing to do with b-sides or PD for that matter. The b-side casts a spell of explanation everywhere, pathologizing the a-side until it’s hard to tell a from
b for body
b for branded
b for bloat
b for bleak
b for blood
b for brain
b for betray
b for breathe breathe breathe
—Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, November 2006