Dearly Departed

Dearly Departed__________________________________

She knew change was coming the moment his lips parted. The words felt heavy at first…..solemn almost, as if each syllable carried with it the weight of a realization she had long suspected. It had been close to five years since they first met each other in a coffee shop that closely resembled the one in which they now sat, the one from which they would both leave…alone.

"I’m sorry it had to come down to this. I never meant for it to turn out this way you know. I didn’t choose for you to stay behind, though I understand why you are." She stared at him intently, searching for any indication…any sign of intrepid devotion that might echo through his stoic exterior: some movement of emotion to protrude from the inner processions of his soul. But she found nothing except the candor from which he now spoke. Idealized moments flickered behind her eyes as she confined herself within the remoteness of her feelings.

“You are always welcome to follow me…after the passing.” She listened as his words lent form to thoughts she had refused to shape into the linguistic context within which they now pervaded.

“Maybe. We’ll see.” She spoke softly in a ubiquitous manner.

“And it’s only a two hour plane ride. I’ll be able to come visit you in between semesters and every other chance I get…I promise. And when he’s gone…you know I’ll be there for you.” His words sounded empty, obscure and hollow of meaning. Or at least that is how she wanted them to sound.

She began to swizzle her coffee, creating a vortex within the liquid that filled it. She watched as each ripple blended into the other, moving in a balanced union that she longed for in her own life. Her breathe felt truncated beneath the weight of the conversation, as if her body were buried beneath the soil of her past. She moved her hands from the cup into her lap, and then to the iron rim of the chair upon which she sat. She held on as tight as she could and promised never to let go.

“It’s only for two years. After that I will be done my degree and free to go where ever desire takes us.” Was it really school that was taking him away from her?...or was it his desire to be free? What was a degree anyway, just some loose piece of paper: a symbol of merit. To her, there could be no more potent symbol than the bond formed between two people free from illusion and judgment, free from the conditions of a society that blinds its members from the most natural truths of life. She sighed and glanced obliquely at her watch.

“Are you….ok? You’ve been awfully silent.”

“You know I am. It’s just…well…it has been hard on me this past year with the accident…and now I’m losing you too. How did you expect me to react?”

Silence.

“I’m sorry. I really am.” His hand extended towards her in attempt to lessen the distance that now loomed between them. She wished she could believe him. And in some obscure way she did, yet his words could not subside the feeling that she was being abandoned. Her, the woman who had put her life aside in the face of disaster, the one who understood what it meant to sacrifice…who knew what it meant to love. She wanted to grab him, to hold him in lustful passion and whisper loosely into his ear that she would come if only he could wait a while longer…until her most tangible connection to the past and her history had faded into the blackness of death. Only then could she be ready to move forward, towards the future they had intended. Yet she knew now, in the present moment, that such idolizations were visions at best, blurred by shades from the past.

“I have to go now. I told nurse Bennit that I would be there when they moved him into his new room.” It was a lie. The first she had said in the length of their relationship. At least that she could remember.

“To a new room? You didn’t like the last one he was in?”

“No…it’s not that. Just technical stuff I think. I don’t know why they want to do it” A second lie. Not that it mattered any longer. She gathered herself and stood up. He got up as a polite gesture…something that he hadn’t done since the first days of their relationship. She stepped forward and embraced him. He felt like a stranger to her…cold like a statue, fractured like a painful memory. She turned and walked away in one swift movement without looking back. She wanted to know if he had stood to watch her walk away but she would not turn to see.

_______


Her mind was caught within a whirlwind of emotion. Why had she lied to him? Why now? She half heartedly knew: she had wanted to give some other reason for their breakup than the hospital that silhouetted the horizon of her awareness, the accident and the immobilization, the bed in which his corpse lay…synthetically breathing.

Her feet moved at a relentless pace. She quickly weaved in between the floods of people, moving as swiftly as possible against the current of motion. She wanted to be alone, to disappear from herself and the responsibilities that surrounded her. She did not know where she was headed…only that it was away from him.

What seemed like hours later she began to notice an ache in her feet. Her attention shifted from the rapid flow of thoughts towards the feet on which she now depended on to take her away. Each step she took was traced with her breathe, as the shadows cast by trees lining the sidewalk flickered patches of light and darkness within her vision. She began to hesitate, as each progressive step filled her with more pain. Had her feet left tracks behind the pace that she walked, they would have resembled those of a drunken man: misdirected and slightly askew.

Approaching a bench that was placed on the outer portion of a church courtyard, she took the opportunity to rest, to be still again. Sitting, she slipped off her left shoe first and tenderly rubbed the arc. The cramp knotted within slowly began to dissipate as her attention again introverted itself. An image of her father’s modest face was stained upon the back of her eyelids. She stared at him with admiration, remembering the sacrifices that he had made - a single father raising an only daughter alone. He had understood what it meant to forgo the pleasure of an uninhibited life…free from self-moderated constrictions and constraints. Yet, ironically, it was he who now lay in front of the migration into her future, in a silent protest to what might have been. Since his accident - the one that had left him immobile and in her care, he had become a symbol of maturation. She had watched fate rob her once proud and graceful father of everything that hade made him the person he was, leaving behind only the temple from which his spirit rose. She pictured the hospital room in which he now lay in a catatonic state, paralyzed from the world. It was only a matter of time before he would pass away.
Again his face came into focus, but this time it melded into that of an old and decrepit stranger. Age now wore upon his face like a birthmark. She pondered the commitment that she had made to herself lying beside him in the hospital bed on the night of the accident; the promise to stay by his side until the very end...just as he had stayed when she was only a small child. She imagined the fear that he must have felt, the uncertainty…being a new father with nothing but a child to care for. Remembering the sacrifices that he had endured over the years lent her the strength she desired.

Slowly, carefully, she began to open her eyes. The sun rays penetrated the darkness, breathing new life to the day. She looked forward, towards the horizon of her future and knew that she had done the right thing. It was not him who left her, but her who had left him, her who had chosen to honor the commitment that she had made to herself, to her dying father…to the past that she carried with every step. She would move now into an untold future, shaped through the winds of the past. There is always a new tomorrow to be born, so long as there is someone who is willing to face it. She looked down towards her feet and realized that the pain was gone.