one minute,
you were flying free in a dreamy rose ribboned sky with the wind kissing your wings
and the next minute,
you were crashing into a false future,
impersonating a cloudy horizon,
delivering a heart-stopping
ending
to a very small but precious story
I looked for you at the grocery store – in the soup aisle, in the bread area of the bakery, by the colorful and confusing boxes of pop, but I didn’t see you anywhere. I noticed there were no small containers of Turner’s whole milk and I knew you’d be disappointed. I remembered, as I passed the frigid butter boxes, that you had about 5 expired boxes of Land ’O Lakes butter in your refrigerator when I cleaned it out two months ago. It was the salted butter, that’s the one we like best.
I always park close to the store, so the walk is easier for us. I’ve been to the store three times since you died and the first two times I parked in the same place where we always park. Today, I parked in a different spot, across the street and on a different side of the store. I wish I could say that I laughed at myself when I couldn’t find my car after shopping. My ironic confusion only made me feel more exhausted.
On New Year’s Eve, I listened to some of your messages on my phone. On one day in July, there were 11 messages from you which range from sweet to cruelly delusional. Contrary to the expected reaction, I sit completely dry-eyed and listen to your voice – even the angry messages bring me a familiar sort of peace.
I look for you at your house, expecting to see you in the kitchen, in the hallway, in the sun room. I sit quietly on the couch and fix the blanket and the pillows when I leave, because I know how you like them to be neat and straight.
The world continues on its path forward. People are out shoveling snow and I see a dog playing with young kids like something out of a Hallmark movie or an insurance commercial. My life is forever altered marking a “before” and an “after”, but life in general continues without missing a single beat. This is simultaneously devastating and comforting.
At my house, I hear your voice kindly commenting on the little kitchen shelf and the new creamer I bought last week. I look for you around the corner and expect the dog to be barking at your awkward movements as you try to find a place for your coat and your purse. But the dog isn’t barking, your coat isn’t here.
You, are not here.
Where are you?
my mum: We’re all going to hell together.
me: We’re not going to hell now, we’re safe here. We’re all together and it’s nice here.
my mum: This is hell.
me: Tell me what you grew in your garden?
my mum: In hell?
me: In Ohio, you had a beautiful garden and you grew lovely roses.
my mum: Oh the roses were my favorite, red and pink and yellow roses…
pause
my mum: I want to die.
me: I know mama.
feel the thin space between the living and the departed today—
listen for their names on the wings of the changing winds
“I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses.”
from the book, This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1920
I listened to the same song on repeat for hours today. Wandering through the lines, the verses, the melody. A parallel universe where i am eternally 15. A slim body, a full heart, life stretching out before all of us, long and lush and infinite. The opposite of this reality where age has been unkind and the only lines i see are under downcast eyes and my aching and tired heart beats irregularly—stands before me in stark contrast. All the people i loved that went away, went away forever walking into death head-on, like deer in front of trucks on the turnpike. There they are alive and laughing, in this parallel world, telling jokes, being young. I smoke another cigarette and watch the sun set on a cold November evening, the trees in black silhouette against a grey sky, blurred through my quiet tears, my chasm of pain and loneliness. I want to reach through time, yank them away, shout and scream and plant my feet on solid ground, love again and want again and breathe again. There we all are, frozen between the notes, the saxophone solo, the lines we all sang together in unison. We were invincible in our youth and ignorance. And yes, i want to climb into the velvet voice, that voice that is also gone forever, and use it like a blanket—a soft everlasting, warm blanket of hopefulness and love that is not only missed, but misplaced.
he regretted everything,
and my heart still breaks–
because now,
he regrets nothing
spanishwoods 