Light that Failed
A friend phones to interrupt my morning tea with an offer of coffee. Being in mid-process, the tea has steeped to an angle that is near vertical. I tell my friend yes, abandon my plans to dilute the muddy liquid with more boiling water, and down the stuff as is. Coffee at Peet's? Why not? I have made it to the tea stage of the morning at 10:30, and more caffeine can only help.
It takes me a long time to dress. It takes me a long time to sit up in bed. It takes me a long time to consider showering. A sleep deficit exerts a strong influence on my days, and like the debt of some central bank, there is no erasing it, for the interest is constant and the terms are hopeless. I keep imagining a fall in the morning bathroom, skidding across the tile, something cracking. Worst, I imagine this happening alone, lying for a long time undiscovered, dying fractured and alone.
The days are better, although annoying. Napping at 1:30 in the afternoon, my hard-to-come-by sleep jerks out of itself with the sound of knuckles on wood. Surely, it is my mother-in-law from upstairs, and why can't she just come inside? Another rap. I have swung my right leg off the bed, and the left non-paralyzed one now follows slowly, owing to the destabilizing effects of sudden movement. My balance is not what it was. My nap is not what it was. In fact, it is over. I straighten myself to standing, pivot and drop into the wheelchair. Placing my feet on the pedals would be madness, because of the time required, so I hold them off the ground, inert right foot supported by innervated left leg, and roll, footrests folded, to the front door. A third knock.
Outside, my mailman is standing. He holds the afternoon's post. There is a box outside for this sort of thing, but he has a question. Is it true? Chinese was his first language, English is a second, and I would not recommend a third. Because my wit is at its end and I am operating on a thin margin, it is all I can do to talk to this man. He has been kind to me for many years, carefully tucking my mail under the metal flap of my house address sign for easy reach. Is it true? He means Marlou, of course. I nod wearily. He visibly starts, then hands me the mail. He tells me that he just saw her a few weeks ago. What kind of cancer was it? Colon cancer, I reply. Oh, he says, down here, pointing at his bottom. A pause. He tells me he will do anything for me. Just ask. I thank him, shut the door. And is it true?
My home gives every indication that it is. Pictures of Marlou have been propped up around the living room. They dominate the piano, occupy her former desk and greet visitors just inside the front door. Marlou photographed well. She had a glow, and this is apparent, in different ways, throughout my temporary portrait gallery. Marlou standing demurely with quiet pride beside the table she had set for some holiday, glasses sparkling, plates shining, candles glowing. Standing back to back with my sister, mildly clowning. And bending over my wheelchair to give me a hug at a bar mitzvah. She looks beautiful in the latter. And the fact of our relationship, that one of us was crippled and rolled, one of us stood and died, all of this comes at me. Is it true?
I ask myself the same question soon after my friend walks in the door. Coffee. We head to Peet's the long way, via the dry cleaners, but the route is not long enough to contain his story. My friend's brother had died, I knew that. My pal had headed north for the funeral and so missed Marlou's. What I didn't know was that this was a murder-suicide, and two human beings are dead, one at the hand of the other. And what emanates from these events is so complicated and far-reaching that my own grief acquires a certain perspective. I stare at my friend, feeling the relative shallowness of my own experience and the stupefying weight of mortality. I ask him how he is doing. He seems not to fully know.
I need a paper napkin, or think I do, and roll to the counter where they reside among packets of sugar, plastic cup lids and wooden stirring sticks. The woman snapping the top on her cappuccino turns out to be Carla. Miraculously, I recall her name. It has been years since we have seen each other, and it turns out she is still in the PR business. The years have had virtually no effect on her. I say this, and she brightens. I brighten too, remembering that we always liked each other, always hit it off. And she has such a pleasantly warm force field around her body, I can't help wondering if maybe some reconnection, exchange of phone numbers, some next step might be in order. So long, she says. Marlou had illusions about escaping the bedroom where she died. And I have illusions about escaping grief. I remember the paper napkin and return to the table.
Another table comes back to me, one from 40 years before. Not long after my injury, ensconced in a rehabilitation hospital, two friends came to visit. They put me in a folding wheelchair, got me in their car. And soon I was sitting in a restaurant somewhere. An outing. I was getting out. The conventional wisdom was that getting out of the hospital was good. In fact, the sight of people casually enjoying themselves disturbed and irritated me. I could not imagine a life among them, observing the life that had been mine only a few months before. I must have had some trouble maneuvering the menu. Perhaps one of the two girls held it for me. I ordered something. Food arrived. We talked.
One of them leaned forward. She told me I hadn't smiled all evening. I stiffened and searched for a reply. No memory exists of the words, but I recall the sense of shame and failure. I had failed to be cheery or failed to communicate or not done what was supposed to be done. Certainly, she meant well in visiting me, for we were not close friends. Only university mates. And now a threesome of table mates. And I never heard from either again. Nor did they hear from me.
At some moments, one-sided conversations are best. Silence has its merits. Because this 40-year-old memory is still with me, it must contain a lesson. That the girl, and that is what she was, might have said to me, the boy, that she felt terribly sorry or sad or confused or ineffective. And that she was glad to see me. Whatever the circumstances, I was still me, and it was good to be there with her friend at a table, the three of us. Nothing required of the evening.
Recently a young rabbi, perhaps half my age, warned me about shiva. People don't know to be quiet, he said. You should not feel obliged to speak. You pick up a bit of knowledge over 40 years, wandering the wilderness or not.
The strangest of the things Jewish in which I currently dabble is the memorial candle. People from my congregation brought it, my sister helped me light it, and there was nothing more to do but watch it. The candle lasts a week. On this night, my first alone, Marlou's parents having returned to Hawaii this morning, I rolled up my wheelchair ramp and saw the flame through the blue glass of its weeklong protective lamp. Marlou's funeral was seven days ago. I am acutely conscious of this, watching the candle flicker. The light will fail. I expect it to be out by morning. It's easy enough to mark the week. If you want 'push', a reminder e-mail would do splendidly. Even an alarm clock would get the message home. But a candle dies a special death. Like the human spirit, it strives, flickers until exhausted, then gives up its vapor. The heart breaks small pieces, so that it does not split in two.
It takes me a long time to dress. It takes me a long time to sit up in bed. It takes me a long time to consider showering. A sleep deficit exerts a strong influence on my days, and like the debt of some central bank, there is no erasing it, for the interest is constant and the terms are hopeless. I keep imagining a fall in the morning bathroom, skidding across the tile, something cracking. Worst, I imagine this happening alone, lying for a long time undiscovered, dying fractured and alone.
The days are better, although annoying. Napping at 1:30 in the afternoon, my hard-to-come-by sleep jerks out of itself with the sound of knuckles on wood. Surely, it is my mother-in-law from upstairs, and why can't she just come inside? Another rap. I have swung my right leg off the bed, and the left non-paralyzed one now follows slowly, owing to the destabilizing effects of sudden movement. My balance is not what it was. My nap is not what it was. In fact, it is over. I straighten myself to standing, pivot and drop into the wheelchair. Placing my feet on the pedals would be madness, because of the time required, so I hold them off the ground, inert right foot supported by innervated left leg, and roll, footrests folded, to the front door. A third knock.
Outside, my mailman is standing. He holds the afternoon's post. There is a box outside for this sort of thing, but he has a question. Is it true? Chinese was his first language, English is a second, and I would not recommend a third. Because my wit is at its end and I am operating on a thin margin, it is all I can do to talk to this man. He has been kind to me for many years, carefully tucking my mail under the metal flap of my house address sign for easy reach. Is it true? He means Marlou, of course. I nod wearily. He visibly starts, then hands me the mail. He tells me that he just saw her a few weeks ago. What kind of cancer was it? Colon cancer, I reply. Oh, he says, down here, pointing at his bottom. A pause. He tells me he will do anything for me. Just ask. I thank him, shut the door. And is it true?
My home gives every indication that it is. Pictures of Marlou have been propped up around the living room. They dominate the piano, occupy her former desk and greet visitors just inside the front door. Marlou photographed well. She had a glow, and this is apparent, in different ways, throughout my temporary portrait gallery. Marlou standing demurely with quiet pride beside the table she had set for some holiday, glasses sparkling, plates shining, candles glowing. Standing back to back with my sister, mildly clowning. And bending over my wheelchair to give me a hug at a bar mitzvah. She looks beautiful in the latter. And the fact of our relationship, that one of us was crippled and rolled, one of us stood and died, all of this comes at me. Is it true?
I ask myself the same question soon after my friend walks in the door. Coffee. We head to Peet's the long way, via the dry cleaners, but the route is not long enough to contain his story. My friend's brother had died, I knew that. My pal had headed north for the funeral and so missed Marlou's. What I didn't know was that this was a murder-suicide, and two human beings are dead, one at the hand of the other. And what emanates from these events is so complicated and far-reaching that my own grief acquires a certain perspective. I stare at my friend, feeling the relative shallowness of my own experience and the stupefying weight of mortality. I ask him how he is doing. He seems not to fully know.
I need a paper napkin, or think I do, and roll to the counter where they reside among packets of sugar, plastic cup lids and wooden stirring sticks. The woman snapping the top on her cappuccino turns out to be Carla. Miraculously, I recall her name. It has been years since we have seen each other, and it turns out she is still in the PR business. The years have had virtually no effect on her. I say this, and she brightens. I brighten too, remembering that we always liked each other, always hit it off. And she has such a pleasantly warm force field around her body, I can't help wondering if maybe some reconnection, exchange of phone numbers, some next step might be in order. So long, she says. Marlou had illusions about escaping the bedroom where she died. And I have illusions about escaping grief. I remember the paper napkin and return to the table.
Another table comes back to me, one from 40 years before. Not long after my injury, ensconced in a rehabilitation hospital, two friends came to visit. They put me in a folding wheelchair, got me in their car. And soon I was sitting in a restaurant somewhere. An outing. I was getting out. The conventional wisdom was that getting out of the hospital was good. In fact, the sight of people casually enjoying themselves disturbed and irritated me. I could not imagine a life among them, observing the life that had been mine only a few months before. I must have had some trouble maneuvering the menu. Perhaps one of the two girls held it for me. I ordered something. Food arrived. We talked.
One of them leaned forward. She told me I hadn't smiled all evening. I stiffened and searched for a reply. No memory exists of the words, but I recall the sense of shame and failure. I had failed to be cheery or failed to communicate or not done what was supposed to be done. Certainly, she meant well in visiting me, for we were not close friends. Only university mates. And now a threesome of table mates. And I never heard from either again. Nor did they hear from me.
At some moments, one-sided conversations are best. Silence has its merits. Because this 40-year-old memory is still with me, it must contain a lesson. That the girl, and that is what she was, might have said to me, the boy, that she felt terribly sorry or sad or confused or ineffective. And that she was glad to see me. Whatever the circumstances, I was still me, and it was good to be there with her friend at a table, the three of us. Nothing required of the evening.
Recently a young rabbi, perhaps half my age, warned me about shiva. People don't know to be quiet, he said. You should not feel obliged to speak. You pick up a bit of knowledge over 40 years, wandering the wilderness or not.
The strangest of the things Jewish in which I currently dabble is the memorial candle. People from my congregation brought it, my sister helped me light it, and there was nothing more to do but watch it. The candle lasts a week. On this night, my first alone, Marlou's parents having returned to Hawaii this morning, I rolled up my wheelchair ramp and saw the flame through the blue glass of its weeklong protective lamp. Marlou's funeral was seven days ago. I am acutely conscious of this, watching the candle flicker. The light will fail. I expect it to be out by morning. It's easy enough to mark the week. If you want 'push', a reminder e-mail would do splendidly. Even an alarm clock would get the message home. But a candle dies a special death. Like the human spirit, it strives, flickers until exhausted, then gives up its vapor. The heart breaks small pieces, so that it does not split in two.
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