Adam's Hands

The beginning had not come the way I had expected. As I stood here, with the light brighter than ever. The sun on my face that no longer felt cold or bought me the comfort it needed. I was standing here watching as people I had always loved walked past me. Lost. I was lost to an oblivion I could not fathom. Standing here alone, I was beginning to wonder how I had gotten here. A hand tender and small slipped into mine, and I looked down at the boy next to me. His sweet brown eyes met mine and he smiled. I knew who he was instantly, this love I had never had the right to feel in life. He was what I had dreamt he would be, with his father’s kind eyes and the smile that looked more like mine. He was kind and loving, and it could be seen in his eyes. “Adam”, I say his name and he smiles at me. He tugs at me as he begins to walk and I follow.
We stop to look, and he keeps his eyes ahead. I look in the direction, and see my parents. Dad is quiet but the pain in his eyes very real, tears seem on the verge. Something I had only once seen in his eyes as child. Mum sits at the table and is quiet; she looks tired, dishevelled, not like the strong woman who had once been the only rock. There is a deep pain in this place and the realization of my action feels like the weight of it all has landed, but I don’t feel anything. They barely speak, and tears flow from my mum. Dad comforts her, but the cries are so deep that she is inconsolable.
I only wished to be able to tell them how much it was not their fault, that this had not been the pain I wanted to cause them. My brother walks in the room, as sombre as all else and is easily drawn to tears. He sits down, and seems as though he is lost, he stares ahead, and pain in his eyes is indescribable. My brother who had stood by though so much. Adam looks at me, and smiles.
“You were the family I had hoped to be with, forever, such love and protection is more than what any person could ask for. It is a shame they will now never know how much hurt you had once suffered.”
“I could not tell them, it was too much for me to bare, I could not let them bare it too. I am sorry that the question will never be answered for them. I’m sorry I could not tell them more about you.”
“It’s okay ma, you may have lost your battle, but will always have been my lifeline.”
Again I feel a tug at my hand and we step away from this, as my feet feel heavy, and not even as if they would be useful to me
We spend what feels like minutes in the place where we walk. The silence deafening, but I can feel my boy pull me forward. On we must go, forward, never still. I stop in a place that I had not seen in a while. I remember it well, this other home I had found elsewhere. I stand there alone and then he is there next to me, he slips his arms into mine and I feel him close to me. I turn to look at my son, and now Adam stands tall, a teenager. Handsome with the dark hair and brown eyes, the part of his life he should have spent learning about himself, about love and trails that follow this. He smiles and turns to look.
There at a table sits someone who has been my best friend through times I had thought life had stood still. A secret love I had hidden so she would never feel torn between her dreams and me. She is sitting quietly, she is comfortable, but looks as though she is so very sad. Tears have stained her face, and all I would like to do is sit with her one last time, to make sure she knows that she will be okay. Adam looks at me and smiles gently, “We sent her to you, me and dad, and she was supposed to be a larger part of your life.”
I nod as he continues to speak, “It is a shame she will never know how much you truly loved her. How you had locked your love away so she would feel safe and be free in her choices.”
“I could not bear hurting her, pulling her too many directions. I would rather sacrifice my happiness than hurt her.”
Adam smiles, “A difficult choice, and that is what she will never know. That you loved her so much, you chose her happiness over your own. You always did give everything to the ones you loved, but this one you deserved to fight for.” I nod and I know, that she had been my one dream I had hidden, kept safe so safe that she had stopped believing in my love. She was my best friend; the one would have always chosen to have by me when the world felt too large and too painful. One of the few I could watch smile every second that ticked away so easily with her. I feel sad for her; she had held me high, now I could not do that for her when it mattered most.
Adam pulls me gently forward and we leave her, as she slowly fades from my sight. This time Adam stands with me a young man, young and at a point where he would have been out in the world alone for the first time making what little of it he could his. He is a strapping young man and I proud; I wished terribly to have had him by my side as he now stood with hand again in mine. His brown eyes meet mine and he smiles sweetly.
He turns to look at the people in the room. All of the rest of my friends, who seemed to have now gotten together. They are sitting together talking about me, I am what they have in common. They talk and reminisce about the things I did, the great person they thought I had been, and how much they regret what had happened. It is strange to hear it, it is sad to watch the people who had cared so much for me hurt over me. “They were always the people who sit with you, they will miss you, are the ones who will tell stories of you now.”
Adam looks me in the eyes, and all I can feel and see is him, and this journey that shows me how this is to end for me. He looks back. “They were your closest friends, and it was a known fact among them all, that they loved you and needed you, the same you always needed them.” It is a strange feeling to want to just sit with them, just once more. To tell one last story about our days.
Adam looks at me, before we again move forward. Here I stand looking as everyone is mourning, sad crying, people I barely know have come. I stand at the front of the room while they talk, come to see me as I lay in my casket. Adam is beside me, and older man, but at a good place in life. “All these people have come for you. Even the ones you loved deeply, the ones who barely knew you and even some that fought with you in life. No one wanted this to be your end.”
“It seems so such a ridiculous idea now, surely one action or bad day was not worth the pain this has caused everyone. No one could have stopped or caught this, it was my own selfish battle that I lost. Now there is nothing that will ever undo this.”
Adam links arms with me. “This is the last of this life you will see, it is the last time you have now seen the people who had stood with you. At least now we move onto the next together. Look.”
As I look ahead, I am met with the eyes of my loves, my family, and they gently reach out to me as me and Adam approach. I look back over the face of those I loved. “Don’t look back” I am torn and do not wish to leave them. “Will they be alright?”
“They will carry on, life will carry on. You will see them again.” Adam answers as we step away.