by Tessa Lynne
They arrive ten minutes later. They know but, like me, they do not want to know, to confirm what is written on my face. I tell them what Zachary told me—you collapsed while taking your walk, a few minutes after your last written word to me. Your death was quick. There was no hope of saving you. Their faces look bleak; they are two lost girls. Kenna cries out, “What will we do now?” I attempt some motherly platitudes, but what brings them a modicum of comfort is my saying, “We will still have Vince in our lives.” They respond with sighs of relief. Callie says, “That’s right. We will still have Vince. He can tell us all about Michael.”
6/27
Hello, my love. I am not yet ready to give up this tie to you. Do you remember how we often wrote in close synchrony, the content transmitted and received in real time? Our letters did not bring news, only confirmed what we already knew. You walked with me; we laughed together, cried together.
I am thinking of driving out to the island. Can I bear to go there now, without you? How can I not? I drive slowly, drawn to the place, but I don’t know what waits for me. I want to find some comfort, but I know that agony will first have its way with me.
My steps are slow, each one a reminder that we will never walk here together. I give voice to my grief, cry out loud, a mournful keening from my depths. I cry out your name. I don’t have the strength to vent my grief, or my anger, in any forceful way that rises to the level of the feelings inside of me. I pick up a small branch and break it against a tree. I pick up another and then another, but my arm is weak. I am acutely aware how paltry are my efforts.
I want to break weighty branches, hurl large rocks into the river, run myself to exhaustion, pound my feet into the ground. I want the trees to absorb the pain in my body, the pain in my soul. I want the water to flow over me and through me and gently find its way to my ravaged heart. I want the wind to bring you back to me. I want comfort—and I want to rip myself to pieces.
Spent and emptied, I walk on, making my way slowly to the shelter. Since I was last here, my world has slipped from its axis. I pause, steady myself with one hand on the warm wood of a large, solid support log. I take a deep breath. With hesitation, I sit in my usual spot. I look out at the water, take a deep breath. I lift my eyes to the river bluffs, take a deep breath. My center holds. I can let myself remember—how I would reach out to you from here, our spirits so close it took no effort.
After a time, I am able to settle somewhat into meditation, enough that I can feel the presence of our invisible choir—they have been here all along.
It is evening now. Amelia called earlier and asked to meet at the office for a few minutes. She gave me the letter you had left for me and told me more of your death. She said she was listening as J.T. told Vince it was “a fluke.” It was not indicated by your latest test results. You sneezed, and the weakened valve in your heart briefly, for a nanosecond, failed. A sneeze! A fluke! After all you have been through, your fight for life, your fight for us to be together.
Amelia knows that, if the valve had not failed in that instant, it would have functioned perfectly for six more years. That is why Eli spoke so positively to you about our future just a few days ago—this was not to be. Left reeling from the pain, and my incomprehension, I could not read your letter until just now.
My dearest friend, lover, wife. It is the first of May. I am getting better, but if you are reading this it means I have failed you. I am truly sorry. I know it must be difficult for you. I want you to know that I always felt, always knew, that you were my greatest support, my greatest comfort. I loved you for that, one of many reasons. The fact of the matter is, Sweetness, that my body was not able to with-stand the onslaught of this disease.
Dearest one, take comfort in knowing that I will be happy and that I will watch over you until we are together again. I will be there to greet you when you come home. I have loved you in lives past and in our secondary life. In this life, I have loved you even more and have received the gift of your love. Forever and always your friend, your lover, your husband. Michael
My love, do not think that you have failed me. I know how much you wanted to be with me and how hard you tried. As I turn the page, I am reminded that I will never send these to you. I remember all the pages that passed between us. I thought we would exchange our letters for something more, that you would be here with me. I still await your arrival. Will you come and read over my shoulder?
6/28
Michael, it is an hour since I woke up, and I am now calm enough to sit and write. Your service will be held this afternoon. I asked Amelia what clothes were chosen for you to wear. She said I might not want to know, but I already did. I don’t think of you as being there in a grave; that is not where you are. Still, I want to be a part of it, should be a part of it, sharing with Vince and our girls the grief of losing you.
It occurs to me several times a day that no one is bringing food to the house—no casseroles, no cakes, no cookies, no matter that it is too much. There are no cards or letters of sympathy, no late night phone calls for me to make, no funeral arrangements, no gathering of families and friends. The rituals of your death are being denied me by the same forces that denied your physical presence in my life. Vince, Tara, J.T., Maeve, Henry, and all the others who knew and loved you, are gathering now for your service. I know two things: your body will be interred in a cemetery in the city; Amazing Grace will be played. And I know this—we are not there, your girls and I. It is not right. Michael, I miss you so.
6/29
Good morning, my love. I will need to put some distance between us today. I had cancelled all appointments for two days but have scheduled Sally and one other client for this afternoon. Despite my feeling that it’s not possible, it appears that my life does go on without you. I am going to leave now to do some errands around town. I need to create a buffer zone between my grief and the rest of the world.
Michael, do you know what has been done? Can you understand it? I had thought my pain could be no greater, until Amelia told me that Vince’s memories—of me, of our relationship, of the letters he and I have exchanged—will be erased.
My mind went blank. I sat numbly, silently, unable to comprehend. I now have a visceral understanding of why someone would cut themselves in an effort to feel something, anything. My emotions receded to some deep place where they could not rise up and destroy me. I don’t know how much time passed before Amelia gently nudged me back to life with her words. “Tessa, I understand. I know how much Vince has meant to you, in this lifetime and in others. It may help you to know that he will be with you in your next one.”
Amelia’s words do help, on one level, but it is not on the level of my present existence, in which I can neither accept nor can I understand. If you were here you would see the holes in this notepad, made from the sharp point of my pencil as I bring it down again and again in a feeble attempt to vent my anger and frustration. If it were to miss its mark and enter my body, the resulting pain would not approach what I am feeling. I am going to take a walk, try to meditate, and thereby gain some acceptance. I have no choice.
I did find a degree of calm—that of a mother who knows she has to remain in control for the sake of her child. I have just finished my letter to Vince, the tracks of my tears leaving faint traces on the paper. Amelia said that he is writing to me, for one last time. I asked her why this has been done to us. Why this senseless cruelty?
“Vince was not directly involved in the approach made to you. His knowledge of your contacts, and of the assistance given to you and Michael, was second hand. He would not have been approached on his own. If you and his father had met, he then would have known everything, as your daughters do, but it would have been incidental to that primary relationship. It would not have been the result of Vince’s own search for truth or what had been destined for him in this lifetime.”
The logic of Amelia’s explanation does not escape me, but it is not an argument that reaches the mother in me. I wrote that I will somed
ay find him and will tell him that I had once been close to his father. I said we will share memories of you and maybe he will know, in his heart, who I am.
The girls were here when I got home. They understand it even less, feel as devastated by Vince’s loss as by yours. He would have been both a brother to them and a link to you. We all feel a deep betrayal and cannot see beyond the unfairness of what has been done.
My love, this has taken me a while, long pauses as I dissolve into tears or sit here and try to come to grips with our loss. I know you are not yet close, but Mahalia is, and I feel the strong presence of several other spirits. It is all that makes it possible to have any acceptance of losing you, and now Vince. I can distinguish at least two spirits, their energy filling the space around me. I am aware of an increase in the density of the air and the most subtle of vibrations. I feel a slight warming around me and the qualities of love and support. I know that you are not among them, but their presence, and the process of writing to you, talking to you in this way, has brought me some small measure of peace.
6/30
Good morning, my love. I am beginning to accept that I will never turn to you and say those words, will never awaken to your touch. It is a fragile acceptance, for even as I write this it all comes back. I could force my attention elsewhere, but I want to relish my memo-ries, our hopes and dreams—it is too soon to give them up. To some extent, the utter finality of death makes it easier to accept your loss than Vince’s … I cannot go there.
I had to schedule two clients for this afternoon, so I will need to keep some distance from you again. It will not be easy to see and talk to colleagues I have known for years and not share my loss. I am close to two of them, yet even they know nothing of the great love of my life.
I must go now, sweet heart. I need to take Callie to work, and then I will walk awhile with my memories. It is a cool, cloudy, windy day—somehow that will make it easier, to be out in the elements.
Michael, I am back, feeling like the proverbial camel that has had one too many straws placed upon its back. As I walked, I realized that your last name had escaped me. It was on my mind just yesterday as I was thinking of searching for Vince. I assumed my forgetfulness to be a temporary effect of my grief.
Amelia was in the waiting room when I finished with my last client. She stepped into my office but said she did not have time to sit down. She had managed to retrieve your locket from your personal effects at the hospital and she gave it to me, in pieces, and explained that the chain broke when you fell, in the last moment of your life. You reached for it, clung to it, as you realized you might be dying.
She gave me Vince’s letter. There was no time to read it then or to question her further about why his memories had been erased. It would have been futile—no answer would have satisfied me. She said she had to leave but I quickly, insistently, asked about your last name, could she remind me of it. She said, “Child, I must tell you, your memory of Michael’s last name has been taken from you. I would have told you when next we met. And now, I cannot stay a moment longer.”
It was just as well. I would have found no comfort in her explanations as I felt the weight of this final straw pressing down upon me. I made it home, the drive a vague memory. Then, through my tears, I read Vince’s heart-wrenching letter. I feel the enormity of what he has lost and of what the girls and I have lost, but there is no force behind my lamentations. I am too weak now. The pain eases a little as I write to you, talk to you.
I keep your locket close to my heart and will get a new chain to-morrow. I touch it to my lips, as you did to yours, and then I touch it to my cheek to capture your essence. I sit here, longing to be where it has been these last six months—nestled against your chest, pressed to your lips.
Dear Teresa, this is the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write. How do I say goodbye to someone I’ve never met? I did not say to someone I don’t know. I feel as though I do know you. The few letters we have exchanged, and what Dad read to me from some of his, have told me a lot about the kind of woman you are. Amelia told me why you can’t be here with us. I’m trying to understand and accept everything, but it is hard. I don’t think it is fair that you can’t be here. I don’t think it is fair that I can’t visit you or even know more about you and Callie and Kenna. I had almost come to think I had a family somewhere.
I used to kid Dad about his phantom girlfriend. Now I’m sorry I ever did that. I don’t think you’re a phantom. I think you loved my father as much as he loved you. Teresa, he did love you. Whenever I asked about you, this look came over his face like a look I had never seen before. I wish you could have seen it.
I don’t want to stop writing. I don’t want to say goodbye. I wish we had known each other better. I don’t want my memories taken away. I asked Amelia, if I ever met you someday, would I know you? She said probably not. I think I will. I hope I will. I will miss you and Callie and Kenna. Good bye, Teresa. Love always, Vince
7/1
Michael mine, is your first journey almost complete? I told you I have sensed a very definite presence, sometimes more than one, yet there is nothing of you in them. Zachary tells me there have been several, most often my father’s spirit and that of his mother, who I don’t remember. They have come to comfort me.
This is the longest I have been awake, a little over an hour, with-out being overcome by tears and sobs of grief, saying your name, asking why. I still can’t put it into words that are adequate to convey the depth of my loss and longing. The emotions of my deepest grief exist at some primal level—technically, in the limbic area of the brain—that has lost communication with the cerebral cortex, the origin of more sophisticated expression. By the time I write of a moment, an hour, a day of grief, I have already lived it. I have distilled the raw pain down to something I can carry with me without having it destroy me. It is easier now, the sharp, jagged edges of my grief have softened a little—sorrow remains.
A full week has passed since I heard the words “Michael is dead.” To write them now brings back the tears. I hold on to your locket … my link to you.
7/2
I wake up to a perfect summer morning—a hint of moisture in the air, the mere suggestion of a breeze, the sun warm not hot—the earth giving up its essence. I am tending my flower garden, returning to life, when I am brutally assaulted. The stillness is broken by the soft, plaintive cooing of a mourning dove, so aptly named they might have been created to give voice to the grief of all humanity. It is the second call, in response to the first, that does me in.
I need to get away, to walk, to move fast. The island air adds the scents of the river and of thick vegetation, ripe with summer, but there is no escape—the trails remind me that I will never walk here with you. The pain intensifies. It pierces me at my center, where you would reach the stone that has now lost its resonance. It radiates from there to my heart as I cry out in grief and sorrow. I turn off on an old forgotten trail, blinded by my tears. I cannot bear this pain—and I cannot outrun it.
I am walking as fast as I can, trying to distance myself from the pain, when I crash into a barrier—there is a solid wall in front of me. I fall halfway to the ground from the impact, struggle to regain my balance, then pause in the stillness. I see now that there is no physical barrier; the path before me is clear. The energy that stopped me in my tracks now envelops me. I feel it infused in me, in every cell of my body. I know it is Eli. As I stand in place and allow a fuller awareness to develop, I am lifted up and supported, surrounded by love and healing—a moment written indelibly on my soul.
It is late in the evening. I am still filled with the wonder and strength of Eli’s manifestation. It was as if he had materialized in front of me, as solid as a physical presence. I recall the visit he made to you a week ago that filled you with awe, brought back memories of your journey to the Light. We have been blessed.
7/3
My love, to write as if you are still in this world has been a necessary transition—to continue
will serve less purpose. As the pages add up, I am reminded that they will never be sent. You will never hold them in your hands, will never reply.
Michael, you are always on my mind. Sometimes I think I have achieved a calm acceptance, and then I am once again in tears, mourning your loss, the future we had planned, and the past twenty years that might have been ours. The pain of those lost years would have eased if we had met—now it is mine alone. I know that the pain of losing you will surface again. I will tempt it as I leave the present moment and visit the past or future. I now sometimes invite the pain, need to feel it to signify the magnitude of our loss.
You are surrounded by the Light, and you understand much that was not clear to us. I wait for you to return to me, to make your presence known. I will not say goodbye. It is too soon for that. I cannot yet imagine that time will ever come, but I know that it must. You will need to move on in what is now your world. I will need to move on in what I can only define as a world without you.
My sweet Michael mine, ne manqué pas de revenir me voir. Au revoir, mon cher. Je t’aime.
27. Alexander is No More
TEN DAYS SINCE ZACHARY BROUGHT the news of Michael’s death, and I have moved the mementos of our time together to my bedroom, visible but not constant reminders. Two items were missing from what Amelia returned to me—the red stone and his favorite card.
I keep two cards near. One I had bought an hour before Michael’s death and planned for him to have before his next tests. The front shows a little girl on a beach, sand running through her fingers, and the familiar words of William Blake: