Death is a Mile Marker

I just want what everyone standing on the perimeter of Death's cold shadow wants: for the pain to cease, but the loved one to remain.

*****

As we silently stroll Hemingway's rain-slicked, Parisian streets, alternately stomping its shadows and kicking at its puddles, we relentlessly gnaw on the darkest pieces of our personal Moveable Feasts, chewing them flavorless and sucking the juices bone dry before swallowing them whole. Despite the acidity, we force the shards down until we choke. It's a little death—somewhat smaller than that of the loved one lost, but a failure of the heart, just the same.

Yet, we trudge and stumble and kick on.

We mark the miles of every achievement: each conquest and celebration; one year passed and another begun; one more life welcomed into this fragile yet indestructible world, home, small womb we call a heart. We establish life by making strides towards its end. Stages of grief, though, make the deepest cuts in time, delineating all that pushes us forward in celebration from that which grievously stops the clocks.

Then come the off-ramps, the crossroads and, Christ, if any of us know which way to turn. Anyone who says they do is a liar. Because the heading’s been lost; the North Star, snuffed out. Though you will eventually find a way, it will never be the path originally chosen. It will never end with the soft flesh of a proud embrace from those you most hoped would welcome you home. Because, goddammit, you can’t go home again. It ceases to exist the moment you close the door behind you.

And so, you make your farewell to arms...and travel on.

*****

When emotional pain overwhelms, there occurs in my left arm a pain that shoots from shoulder to wrist, which then makes a home my index finger, like I swallowed the smallest sun comprised of blood, threaded with aching sorrow. This violet throb has always been my reminder: It doesn’t get worse than this. It cannot ever hurt worse than this.

Of course, though, it always can. I always knew this on a logical level, I thought. But logic always fails when most needed. It could never get worse than that thudding purple—until March 11^th of 2012. On that day, I thought oxygen dissipated; that my heart beat only as a timer, ticking off the seconds before its detonation. My shoulder, arm, bloodless fingertip, went numb. All was insensate.

Yet, I’m still breathing; my heart, still beating.

It all comes down to this, always this:

I miss my daddy. I want him back. God, every day, I want to once more feel the proud wrap of his fragile, paper-thin flesh around my waist, his crippled hands stroking my shoulders. But not at the cost of one throbbing ache in his finger. Not even that ounce of pain for all the weight comprised in 7 grams.

No child, no matter how old, should ever lose their beloved daddy. No man, no matter how young, should abide agony for his darling daughter.

There's no doubt in my mind: I handpicked him to be my father, despite his many flaws and weaknesses, just as he chose me, in spite of my many imperfections and faults. These, the most important decisions, are the ones we never remember making.

*****

I know we've all heard it thousands of times but, please, do me this one favor and listen to the lyrics. Just once more. I implore you, since I can't beg Silly Daddy to once more sing it smiling for his Lily Glirl.

This and all of the joy and heartache in-between, comprises the substantial weight of 7 wispy grams.

“You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.”

Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast.

)

I love you, Silly Daddy.