Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. Vicki Harrison
One sip of coffee. I ask it to wash away chaos inside my head, to stop yesterday from flooding the kind of memories that jolt reality, to cause a friend’s dead fingers to move again.
Outside, the wind stops as if it understands. All moments end.
I recall making my friend laugh. A story about childhood innocence.
Now may I hold onto that memory at least for the next moment.
Snow fell avalanche style. Margie didn’t bother to look out the window. Family Christmas celebration would wait until the week after New Year’s Day. It didn’t matter. Her husband Len had left this world. Ten years ago. On December 24. She hadn’t believed him when he told her he didn’t think his weak heart would hold out any longer. So unfair for a man in his fifties.
“We’re seeing the cardiologist on Monday. He’ll find something else we can do,” she had said, as he shook his head, eyes unblinking.
Len. He had seemed to be the lazy half of their relationship. Long before his illness. He always had an excuse for tasks like taking out the garbage. He would lean back and say, “I’ll do it after reading one more page of this book. You need to relax more and stress less, sweetheart.”
Margie often waited until the sun had almost set, then lugged the garbage cans to the curb. So many times.
Len had the energy level of a sloth on sleeping pills, but he was a scholar. PhD. Piled higher and deeper in anything on a metaphorical cloud. Nevertheless, he often bragged to his friends about how his wife could shoot a basketball from half-court and win the game with five seconds left.
Margie qualified the statement. “That happened once. When I was a sophomore in college” She couldn’t understand how she could love Len and be totally irritated by him at the same time. What could he do? It had to be more than cat lounge. She complained. Often.
Then of course there was the frequent argument. The one where Margie hit Len where it hurt him most. His family. Too many black sheep. A brother in prison. Two more who should be. Why he didn’t like to admit his last name, Crimm. Change the last letter and it could become crime. She bit her lip and was almost sorry it didn’t bleed. They never had time to make up. “Forgiveness,” Margie whispered to herself. “The only gift I really want for Christmas.”
The phone rang.
“Margie,” the voice called. “I have a huge favor to ask of you.”
“Sure, what do you need, sis?”
“A young woman named Dara is on her way from up north. She’s not far from your place, but she doesn’t think she can make it to mine. Okay if she stays out the storm with you?”
“Tell her to stop. If the snow settles soon, we will be at the celebration. If not, I would need more than my little Honda to plow through this stuff.”
“Thanks, Margie, I can always count on you.”
Her sister gave Margie an every-hair description of Dara Nubes. “Black straight hair, pale skin, large bustline, a continuous smile…” Her voice faded and disappeared.
Margie punched in her sister’s cell number. She didn’t get to the final digit before the doorbell rang.
Already. Dara had arrived.
“You are a lifesaver,” Dara said slipping off her boots. “The interstate is backed up for miles.”
“I am glad to help.”
“Awe! I smell something delightful cooking. Oatmeal walnut cookies.”
Margie opened her mouth, but nothing came out. This was the first batch of oatmeal walnut cookies she had ever made. She didn’t have much confidence in the baking world. This was an experiment. For Christmas at her sister’s. If it worked, wonderful. If not, no one needed to know about it. And what kind of sense of smell would someone need to recognize walnuts and oatmeal in a cookie?
Dara rushed to the kitchen, opened the drawer where Margie kept her kitchen linens. She opened the oven and handed the two thickest potholders to Margie. As she lifted the pan to the top of the stove, Dara oohed, “Could you give me that recipe. The smell shouts delicious.” She placed one hand on Margie’s arm.
Margie relaxed as if she had stepped into a whirlpool bath. Warmth. It didn’t come from the weather. Maybe she would figure it all out later and enjoy the moment. Some kind of psychic had visited her house, but at least she was a pleasant one.
“These cookies are lifting off the pan perfectly,” Dara said. “Do you bake often?”
“Not really.” Margie hesitated. “Not the kind of calories I want to wear.”
“Gotcha. Not when there’s so much you can do with a spinach salad.”
“Would you like one? I have some leftovers in the refrigerator.”
“Made the way Les liked them. With so much Caeser dressing the vegetables drown.”
“That’s exactly the way he put it.” She stared at Dara, then blurted out, “How do you know so much about me? And Les? I…I…”
“Your sister is a wonderful friend.”
“Yes. I know. But did she tell you this much about my husband?”
Dara didn’t answer the question. She paused before saying, “You are more valuable than you think. And Les is sorry.”
“What?” Margie wondered how she could stammer so much speaking one word.
“Okay. Let me try again. My name is Dara Nubes. Your sister has never met me. She does not know who or what I am. But all is well. More than well.”
“I’m sorry. I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Les knew he put off facing his heart condition too long. And it was his biggest regret because he knows it hurt you.”
“How can you know this? Who are you?”
Dara handed Margie an envelope that seemed to suddenly appear in her hand. “A message for you. It’s why I am here.”
Margie took the envelope and stared at it. Inside was a handwritten note. When she looked up, Dara was gone. The front door had not been opened.
My dear Margie: Look inside the old chest in the bedroom. I saved all the letters you sent me when I was in the army. There are some other treasures there, too. And, my dear, please go back to sports, something super active again. Girl, you’ve still got it. You are only in your fifties. Sure, we’ll meet again, but not for a long time yet. My guardian angel told me when that will be, but it’s against heaven’s rules to divulge secrets. I am sending an angel to deliver this message. Let’s forgive one another, Les
Margie opened the chest. Inside were coins and jewelry, some possibly worth a fortune. There also were journals in Les’s handwriting from thirty years ago. Page one: Today I met a girl. She let me know I am worthwhile even if my family couldn’t do it. Her name is Margie…
I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.(Simone de Beauvoir)
As autumn puts on the last of its show I remember the mini-vacation Jay and I took at Hocking Hills. I walked the trails and paid no attention to that silver band around my wrist with the tiny clock on it—I could have been wearing my watch upside down. It wouldn’t have mattered.
Perhaps that freedom gave me the illusion that utopia existed, at least somewhere; I felt healthy, young, my chi as vitalized as it had been when I said I-do in July of 1971, when I felt as if I would be age 25 forever, continuously renewed. In Hocking Hills nature and I seemed unified. Beauty appeared in every direction.
The real world has returned. Another YMCA friend faces chemo and then radiation. A fellow writer friend fights for her life in an out-of-state hospital. I discover that several people aren’t doing as well as I had hoped. My sister-in-law has been to hell and back again. Her attitude, however, glows. She encourages others. She lives the life-explanation Francis Weller explores in the October issue of Sun Magazine, The Geography of Sorrow. Pain and loss, joy and peace co-exist in order to create a complete existence.
In our American society we expect to begin and end with perfect emotional control. Weller analyzes our bias against public grief. I read the article so slowly it took me several days to absorb each word.
I think about this again as my two older grandchildren, my husband, and I watch Where Hope Grows. The girls have already seen the movie. Rebe and Kate are only eight and eleven years old. Yet, they get it. They suggested the movie. Not every reviewer agrees. The creators made the mistake of using the word, God. However, I recognize more showing than telling, more action than preaching.
Calvin Campbell has sought the answer to life through drink. His choices inevitably fail him and he goes to Produce, a young man with Down syndrome, for the secret to his happiness. An unexpected story unfolds.
My granddaughters know how tragedy looks and feels. Kate’s friend fell through a patch of ice when she was three-years-old; the friend is permanently disabled. I wrote about it in a poem I titled Chrysalis. It was originally published by Saad Ghosn in the annual anthology, “For a Better World 2012.” It will be reprinted in Piker Press on November 23.
The girls also know how to love. When their young cousin Ella sees them she is ecstatic. She talks about them often. Ella, of course, like Produce in Where Hope Grows, knows the secret of happiness. She is satisfied to be herself. She accepts the moment, and lives it fully.
Perhaps full joy isn’t found in happily-ever-after dreams. It lives in the mundane, the muck, the malformed, and the miracles revealed through inside-out transformation. Into the whole.
terrypetersen 