by I J Shur
His heart threatened to explode.
“Daddy, you have to read now,” Michal whispered in his ear.
He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and began to read aloud the words he’d written. His voice broke when he said, “my father.” He took a deep breath, looked ahead, and tried to find a supportive glance. Everyone looked at him with astonished eyes, waiting for him to continue.
“Thank you for being a father to me,” he said. “Thank you for knowing how to love, and for knowing to leave when you were surrounded by our love. We’ll never forget you.”
He lifted his gaze to the heavens. Loneliness choked his throat. People passed by and shook his hand. Once in a while, someone stopped, bent over, and kissed him on his cheek.
A classmate from fourth grade whispered to him, “Be strong.” She’d had a crush on him when they were children.
Tears that had already dried were joined by fresh ones. He gathered his children around him and hugged them all hard. Afterward, he hugged his mother for a long time as the crowd filtered out.
Udi stayed in front of the grave and looked at the pile of dirt. Fear of the upcoming weeks and months paralyzed him. It began to rain, and his tears mixed with the raindrops. He lifted his eyes. “I hope that I’ll never be lower than I am right now,” he said in a weak voice.
Chapter 84
Three months after his father’s funeral, Udi gazed at the illuminated aquarium in Assaf’s room.
“Three months ago, I said goodbye to three very precious people—my father, my wife, and my lover.”
Udi stared for a long time at the colorful fish that flitted quickly about the tank, swimming from here to there, getting nowhere. He had known for some time that Assaf didn’t mind when he watched the fish in silence. They were there to allow him to swim through his own thoughts and to glean from them the most important and most creative ones.
He raised his gaze and looked at Assaf, trying to discern the meaning of his expression.
“So why are we here?” asked Assaf. “What do you need to talk about? Which of the three would you like to dedicate this hour to?”
Udi lifted his eyes to the colorful light decorations that slowly circled in the far corner of the aquarium. For a long moment, he stared at them and thought about the time that he had spent enjoying himself with a girlfriend while he was married. He tried to view the affair in an abstract way. The end of his marriage was a more significant issue.
He also thought about his father’s death. Old narratives and emotions arose in his thoughts.
“For years I kept score with my father. From the time I was born, I held a grudge and was constantly reminding myself how much I suffered at his hands during childhood. I was busy for too many years trying to turn the time back to regain those lost years.”
For a moment, he was reminded of his dad’s crooked smile, the evening of his death, the words he had tried to say to him that had become a breath of air even before they could be formulated or articulated. He remembered the skinny fingers, the way they searched for bits of egg on the plate set in front of him. He saw his father’s blue eyes, the way they’d watch him each time he came to visit.
Love is love. He knew that too. Then he said aloud, “The moment before I said goodbye to him, I saw love in his eyes, a huge love. I’m sure that he could tell from my eyes that I was releasing him with great love.” He placed his head in his hands and murmured, “Rest in peace, my father, rest in peace.”
Udi steadied his gaze on Assaf and said, “Now I need to talk about Varda.”
“Speak!” said Assaf with a twinkle in his eye. Udi hoped that Assaf would open with a question that would set the tone for the session, but lacking the question, he allowed himself to sink deep into thought. Assaf was already familiar with this habit of Udi’s. Assaf knows this is how I find my most significant insights!
Varda and our first date fifteen years ago—how much peacefulness and hope there was that evening. Somehow, we knew that we were meant for each other. It was only a few months, and I’d already moved in with her, and in the years since, we’ve raised a wonderful family together.
Our lives have taken different courses, and our engines started to travel down different tracks in opposite directions. I was always so spontaneous and loved to enjoy life, whereas she was so organized down to the tiniest of details, always worrying about everything.
Udi imagined his life separated into two clear halves, the past on the left and the future to the right. Looking left, he saw the familiar and annoying stories of his former life, the life in which he saw the need to tread lightly, a life full of twists and turns, ups and downs that had now come to a dead end. To his right, there sat huddled—all shrunken and pink, formless and without the slightest spark of power or security—his future. Udi looked to the left and to the right—his past life versus his future one, the familiar family structure as opposed to an intimidating loneliness, the large and spacious house versus the small bachelor pad, the structured, daily relationship with his children versus a daily struggle to gain their love. Udi wondered if he had done enough to try to save his marriage. He lifted his eyes and threw out a question to the universe. “Should I have stayed at home to stick up for myself? Not given in?”
Assaf wore a warm, encouraging expression. “You did everything that you could have. Now you’re here, so let’s see where we’re going.”
“A few weeks before I left the house,” Udi said, “I felt as if I were inside of a huge uterus, and beyond the uterus I could see a bright light shining. I knew that to exit that uterus, I would have to endure unbelievable pain and suffering. But I also knew that my future was on the outside, so I couldn’t give up on this rebirth, as painful as it might be.”
“There will be more painful moments, sad ones, and lonely ones,” said Assaf. “You don’t need to fear them. They’re a part of your growth process and your evolution. You’ll spend many weekends alone in your bachelor pad. You’ll look at the walls, and you’ll cloak yourself in self-pity that will make you cry. Remember, nobody dies from this. You’ll learn to look at it as a process. Look at yourself and devote yourself to your emotions. Feel the pain. Learn to place yourself first. You are the most important one. Go to the mirror and love the character that stares back at you. Learn to have fun by yourself. Learn how to open an interesting book and just lie on the sofa and read. If you love yourself, so will other people. If you learn how to entertain yourself for hours, who wouldn’t want to hang around with a guy who isn’t constantly dependent on outside stimulation?”
Udi squirmed uncomfortably on the couch. Assaf’s descriptions scared him. He wanted him to stop and glanced at his watch. His thoughts began to float around the room, and in a few more moments, he worried they’d find their way out of his head, splattering in all directions. Assaf stopped his speech.
Udi imagined himself lying on the old sofa in his new apartment, staring at the TV, channel surfing. He wished he didn’t have to go through this sad time. For a moment, he thought that he must be situated at the lowest point ever known to humanity. In his mind, he scanned through his list of friends. They, his wife, and even Assaf—they all seemed to be sure of themselves. They knew their place in things.
Udi thought about his friends and the relationships they’d found themselves in. He knew all the details of all of his friends’ relationships with their partners. He’d sat for hours listening to them. None of them were living the high life, but still, they were in relationships and he was not. Varda was going to live in the large home that they had built, and he was not.
Assaf sat across from him in his white easy chair, legs spread, his appearance radiating serenity. He’d also known breakups, but out of the ashes, he’d built a wonderful relationship with a woman who also had to pick up the pieces from the ruins of the past. New kinds of thoughts began to enter Udi’s head and mix with the old, familiar ones.<
br />
He mentally scanned all of the family structures and relationships of the people he knew and did not find a single one that he envied.
Udi sat on Assaf’s couch lost in thought. What a special moment this is—powerful and much more important than I think I can imagine. Ahead, a road stretches at the beginning of the journey toward a new life. On this journey, there will probably be peaks and valleys…but something feels right.
Udi began to see certain words floating around in his head. Responsibility. Opportunity. Beginning. An internal dialogue began almost at once. You have an opportunity that not many people are given. Take control from this point, in the middle of your life, and lead the way forward. Take any direction that your heart desires; everything is wide open, and it’s not too late for anything.
Gratitude washed over Udi. He knew that nothing was going to be the way that it had been before. He would not let that happen again. He would build a different relationship with himself, with his children, with his mother, with his friends, with his clients, and with the world.
He walked out of the room with the steering wheel of his life in his hands, determined to choose the direction.