Loss PART 3: "Luminous beings are we..."

Clasps of purple lightning scratched their way across the midnight sky. Bursts of violet hues ignited the clouds from within. I sat in silence. I felt a gentle breeze on my face and the smell of rain but not a single drop would fall. I was watching the celestial phenomenon from the second floor balcony of one of my best friend’s house. David and I had known each other all through college. We had one of those competitive friendships that survived long after the competitions were over. He made me a cup of coffee, sat in the chair next to me and quietly watched the sky. He knew me well enough. Any other time and we would be cracking jokes about some random college event or debating over who’d had the crappiest day. Not that night. That night… I won. It had been a very bad day.

Earlier that afternoon my mother and I had undergone the barrage of bureaucratic idiocies necessary to insure that someone is unequivocally, officially and altogether legally deceased. After signing a myriad of documents at the hospital we then had to proceed to the funeral home, which added a whole new level of surrealism to the experience. What the f**k is wrong with those people? Usually they prey upon the bereaved, as a vulture would feast upon a festering corpse. They had obviously never met my mother and me. I had to tone down the sarcasm… a lot. I almost lost it when a man resembling Lurch from the Adam’s Family showed us into the “showroom” and proceeded to list the specials they were having that week. There was a solid gold coffin in the corner! Who buys that? I leaned over to my mother and whispered… “What are we supposed to do here? Should I hop inside a couple of them for a test drive?” She tried not to laugh. At least for a moment I was able to make her smile.

We decided to go to our respective houses and meet up in the morning for the funeral. It had been a long and exhausting day. We needed sleep. Little chance of that. I called up my friend and decided to kill some time at his place. Coffee in hand, we sat back and watched the lightning display unfold.

A week earlier I had been standing, like an idiot, in front of an antique toy display in the middle of the mall. The portly young fellow behind the counter asked, “Can I help you?” I pointed at the Yoda puppet behind the glass. I was fighting the onslaught of tears and my eyes were burning. My voice was so shaky that I hissed through my teeth. “How much?” He pulled it out from behind its glassy confine and looked it over. “Sixty dollars.” he belched. I did not hesitate. I did not haggle. If he had said $500 I would have forgone my rent for the month. “Done.” I said. I ran to the nearest cash machine and ran back as quickly as my bony legs would take me. I must have looked insane. Hair disheveled from sleeping on a hospital couch, bloodshot eyes from the lingering sadness and I probably smelled funny too. He placed the little hand puppet in a tiny plastic bag and I grabbed it like “the precious” from Lord of the Rings.

My cell phone rang me awake. What the… It was my mom. “Are you on your way?” she asked. I had come home after a few hundred cups of coffee at Dave’s and must have passed out for an hour or so. “Yeah… I’ll be there in a few.” I answered. “ Did you see the storm last night?” she inquired. “It was like the rainbows yesterday.” Oh geez! The day of the actual passing, my mom had decided to take a ride through Old San Juan to clear her head before dealing with all the technical crap. She told me how she had seen not one, not two, but three rainbows at the same time hovering over the ocean. She said she felt a sudden calm inside as if my grandmother had been watching over her. Now, apparently my grandmother, via an electrical storm, was blasting her way into heaven or something. We see what we want to see. I saw nothing. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” I said and hung up the phone. I cleaned up, got dressed and took one last look around the room to make sure I had all I needed for the colossal day ahead. There, on a little stand, stood my oldest friend. I took a deep breath, cracked a smile and walked out the door.

We invest so much of ourselves in the ordinary everyday things. An old toy, a piece of jewelry, a favorite shirt, a rainbow or three… can hold a great deal of value for us. We associate moments of great significance with the mundane. I think it’s because these trivial things have the power to harness our emotions. The same way we use a digital camera or a camcorder to record specific moments in our lives, these trinkets manage to imprint our feelings and preserve them for “viewing” at a later date. A wedding ring will not only remind you of the event but of the emotional gamut you ran through that day. Hopefully it was a good day or else that very same ring will only bring you pain. For a few days, I was reminded of my childhood and all the pleasant times I’d had under the warm blanket of my innocence. Unfortunately the initial effect had worn off and the dark shadow of the present had reared its ugly head once again. If anything, remembering my youth had only made things worse. The puppet's charm was teetering.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Thank you. “She was a very special person.” Yeah…I know. “If there is anything I can do for you… anything at all.” Can I have a hundred dollars? “She has gone to a better place.” You’ve got to be kidding. “She will always be with you.” Go f**k yourself. I hated this crap and I knew my mother wasn’t having the best time either. We three, my grandmother, my mother and I had never been the huggy-mushy types. When it came to the heavy emotional stuff… stoic. We were never about spewing our feelings all over the place. And when it came to how we felt about one another… we knew. We always knew. Words are the tools of the unsure and the insecure. While it is pleasant to hear an “I love you” now and again, the incessant use of the phrase will eventually render it background noise. It’s meaning lost. We had spent the better half of the day consoling everyone and feeding their ridiculous egos by pretending that they were in fact consoling us. Enveloped in fortune cookie proverbs and self-help clichés, the attack was taking its toll. There were a handful of genuine people. The rest were hypocrites and drama queens. This was hell.

The morning of the burial was more tolerable. There were fewer people and although it had been raining those past couple of days, we caught a small break the moment we arrived at the cemetery. The sun shone through the clouds and the proceedings went on without a hitch. It was done. I could go home. I could rest. “Did you see that?” my mother asked as we drove back and the rain began to fall again. “See what?” “The way the storm stopped, It was like she…” Oh good god. She’s grasping. Here we go again.

I had finally gotten back to my little apartment. My clothes were covered in mud and my feet hurt. My head hurt. Everything hurt. I sat down at the edge of my bed and tried not to think. A movie perhaps? No. I looked around for something to do. There was my little puppet staring back at me. I picked him up and just looked at him for a while. I rolled him around in my hands and took in every inch of detail. Every little wrinkle, the crusty texture of its worn out hair… was he actually my puppet? I tried to make him move but my hands were too big to fit anymore. Suddenly, I did something I had not done in twenty-three years. I whispered to it.

“My grandmother died.”

I felt the rush. Waves crashing into my chest. I had but to utter the words and I could feel everything. My mother wasn’t grasping. I could see her in the lightning bolts. I could feel her in the sun that morning. She was there. She was always there. She would always be there. As for my little aging friend… I understood. He would harness these feelings. He would record them and carry them for me throughout the rest of my life and when I looked at him I would remember. I would remember how this felt. The clash of emotions. I would remember the joy. I would remember the pain. I would remember that for a moment, if ever so brief… I actually believed in magic. Real magic. I pressed his little green head to my forehead and for the second time in my life I could feel my heart breaking. For the second time in my life I cried harder than I had ever cried before. Only this time… this time… I was not alone.

My old friend.

THE END