Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

I, May I Rest in Peace
by Yehuda Amichai

I, may I rest in peace–I, who am still living, say
May I have peace in the rest of my life.
I want peace right now while I’m still alive.
I don’t want to wait like that pious man
who wished for one leg of the golden chair of Paradise,
I want a four-legged chair right here, a plain wooden chair.
I want the rest of my peace now.
I have lived out my life in wars of every kind;
battles without and within, close combat, face-to-face, the faces always
my own, my lover-face, my enemy face,
Wars with the old weapons–sticks and stones, blunt axe, words, dull
ripping knife, love and hate,
and wars with newfangled weapons–machine guns, missile, words, land
mines exploding, love and hate.
I don’t want to fulfill my parents’ prophesy that life is war.
I want peace with all my body and all my soul.
Rest me in peace.

She woke up to a Sunday dawn that was gray with rain. When she awoke again an hour later, still before the alarm, and poked her nose out between the curtains to see if it was still raining, she was surprised to find sunshine trying to chase away the clouds. She tried to remember if she’d ever seen a completely sunny day in all the times she’d been in San Francisco and couldn’t recall one.

It was early enough that, had she wanted to, she could’ve gotten ready and made it over to the Golden Gate Bridge for a hike before heading to the airport, but she couldn’t do it. There were only so many things they were going to do together that she could do alone, and she’d already done several of them this weekend. She couldn’t face one more. She couldn’t muster the false cheer and stiff upper lip required to do everything they were going to do; not today, anyway. Some things would end up just being mourned.

She’d slept with his face on her chest for the first time since he died, but of course it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t even close. But one is amazed by what one will accept in the absence of the optimum.

She washed, dressed, and started to pack up, determined to find breakfast and take a short walk to see the bay and her favorite bridge prior to leaving town. She turned out the last of the lights in the hotel room, feeling the same loneliness she always felt when leaving a place, as if she’d never been there. The wheels of her suitcase were loud on the cement, the noise bouncing off the corridor walls.

The advertised breakfast was barely subcontinental, a handful of plastic-wrapped muffins, a few pieces of white bread next to a toaster, and two partial pitchers of juice and milk. She passed, pausing only long enough to check out.

She parked half a block away from the Marina, already busy with Sunday morning exercisers taking advantage of a break in the rain. No dummies, they, and fit, too, these San Franciscans, walking and biking and wandering about with yoga mats.

To her left, the Golden Gate rose up until it was half-hidden in the cloud banks over the Marin headlands. It never ceased to impress her, this bridge, the fact that it could be built at all, the fact that it still stood after all these years, and possessed more beauty than one could reasonably expect from a collection of steel and cables. Any glimpse of it took her breath away, and the play of clouds and sunlight upon it this morning only added to its mystery. He had always been delighted by her delight in the bridge, seeing his world again through fresh eyes. She could not leave San Francisco without admiring it properly, if only from afar.

To her right, Alcatraz. She had never had a yen to tour it, certain the shades and the sadness would overtake her there. And to the east the city rose up in foggy silhouettes above the boats and the houses. It was a beautiful city. It was still a beautiful city, but lonely now.

This city, the entirety of Northern California they had explored together, had become a second home through and with him. But now every time she returned, it was to a dark house with no one home. All the stuff was still there, but the one who made it home was not. Everywhere she turned, she felt the heaviness of memory. The road signs. His sister’s eyes, the same color as his. She thought she spied the Bay Bridge, and began to cry, not because they’d ever been on that bridge, but because he had had hanging on his dining room wall a framed program his parents had gotten when the bridge had originally opened. She’d looked at it past the top of his freckled head, and at the blueprint of the Golden Gate Bridge framed nearby, during every meal they ever ate at his apartment. He was California; California is him. It can never be otherwise. And it can never be the same.

Since it wasn’t raining when she left for the show, she left the windbreaker in the hotel room. Naturally, this only encouraged the heavens to open up and begin pouring by the time she pulled into the parking lot, stepped out of the car, and began sprinting and hurdling puddles in a manner that would’ve shocked any of her gym teachers over the years. One puddle was too wide to leap in a single bound, and she felt the water seeping into her shoe immediately.

She came into the building looking like a drowned rat, but not much worse than the rest of the gang already assembled there who were also moist. She sneaked up behind them, put her hands on his best friend’s shoulder and on that of the best friend’s wife and said “Nice weather we’re having,” by way of announcing her presence. There were hugs all around, all of them wearing the t-shirt with his face on it except her; she’d not received hers yet. The picture was one that had originally included her; his sister said “I had to crop you out of it—nothing personal!” Gosh no, nothing personal, if perfectly symbolic. She understood perfectly, and would have without it being pointed out; it didn’t need to be said.

All seemed shocked and surprised that she’d gone to Big Basin that day. Both best friends said “We would’ve gone with you.” She assured them it was fine, and it was enough that they’d offered. She did not say that it seemed clear that she was meant to do it alone, or she would’ve been there in the first place. His sister, who announced her empty-handedness regarding the items they’d discussed, did give to her two acorns from the site at Big Basin. Whether his sister had picked them up with her in mind that day, or thought of it later and decided to offer what she’d picked up for herself, the woman was touched that she’d been thought of at all, and that someone had considered that she would’ve wanted to be a part of it somehow. It was a small gesture, fraught with meaning. Indeed, these gestures often matter the most.

When the lights flickered, the ten of them took their seats, the woman and the sister sitting side by side as the only two non-coupled persons in the gang that evening. The woman laughed inside that she at least got a date from within the proper family, and the two of them talked comfortably, as they had the last time.

All were amazed by the show, and the spectacle of two virtuosi loving their instruments. All commented on how much he would’ve enjoyed it. Whatever the others thought or imagined, one, she, was certain he was there.

As the aging guitarist brought his young bride to the stage to sing while he played, she thought once again how much she hoped that this May-December romance never saw a July like she did. In the safety of darkness, the tears rolled down her cheeks, but the sniffling had no camouflage.

After the show, they milled in the lobby awhile and talked. The guitar god was signing autographs, but she would have other chances for that; it was his friends and family that had her attention, for one never knows when one is living through a last time. This she has learned the hardest way.

His other best friend asked her if she’d consider coming back in May for a big show he and her sweetie had attended together last year. She said she’d think about it. She heard the news about children she’s half-jokingly referred to as her grandkids, (but never to them), and found out that his daughter had received the picture she left behind during the last visit, and displayed it in her home. She offered her condolences for other losses that had happened since they last met; it was a rough year. They asked a stranger to take their picture, everyone in their shirts, all of them together, and yet separate somehow. She could see they were winding down; they had an hour’s drive home and it was time to go. Another round of hugs and goodbyes at the cars, and once again she went back to a hotel room alone while they went home talking amongst friends. She consoled herself with a bottle of chocolate milk picked up from the 24-hour convenience store on the next block and scribbled to him in her journal until sleep forcibly took her over.

Lunch was a hastily grabbed burger and soda at Wendy’s in San Jose at quarter to 3 just before getting on I-280 to head up the peninsula. Springtime had come to California, the fruit trees covered in delicate blossoms, magnolias in full bloom and raining pink petals into the yards below, wild daffodils on the side of the interstate, and little yellow flowers she couldn’t identify at 70 miles-per-hour, (although there was no guarantee she could’ve identified them standing still, either.)

She realized as she drove how much she’d missed, being on the passenger side as he drove; she realized how much she’d prefer that be the case. Her rubber-necking had been kept to a minimum because he held her gaze most often, as she tried to drink in the sight of him, storing a supply of his face in profile, his hands strumming the steering wheel along with the music, in memory against those times when they were apart; she’d never imagined her stockpile would have to last so long. She caught many of their favorite landmarks, though: the cows on the hill outside of Stanford; the linear accelerator; the view of San Leandro where he used to work; coming into town on 19th street, passing Ortega and Noriega where both sets of his grandparents lived, one set in each direction; Golden Gate Park, where it smells like eucalyptus if one opens the windows; the first glimpses of the Golden Gate Bridge above the trees and puncturing the clouds. She missed the Father Junipero Serra statue, somehow. The padre wasn’t the only one she was missing. She didn’t drive alone in California. Until now. And the rain didn’t let up.

She pulled in to the hotel parking lot, checked in, and made her way to a room that had had an excellent photographer with access to an airbrush and good lighting for its picture for the website. But it was cheap and it was close to the venue, and had it not been raining, she probably would’ve walked. Having cleaned up and changed, she thought about dinner, having espied no likely options within shouting distance. The rain had stopped for the moment, so she stepped out to see if she could find something within walking distance, at least. There were hotels galore, some of which had seen their heydays when god’s grandma was a child, a fish and aquarium store, beauty salons, yoga studios, and the ubiquitous Walgreens.

She’d passed by a dive of a wings and sandwich joint in her reconnaissance, and it was there she ended up, finding no alternatives other than a Tibetan restaurant which seemed far too adventurous on top of a day that was already plenty so. She strolled in to find a quartet of Asians running both counter and kitchen, two couples in booths, and a TV blaring despite having no one’s attention.

The waitress was sweet, if limited in her English proficiency, and the woman listened as the high-maintenance couple behind her ordered enough food, slowly and loudly, to feed everyone in the room. The capper came when they’d finished ordering, and the female half of the couple said, “And please, while we’re waiting for our food, could you bring me a piece of cake?” The discussion of what kind of cake this place served took another five minutes at least. While the woman appreciated the spirit of having dessert as an appetizer, it seemed a bit much considering the feast they’d been ordering long enough that she’d finished another chapter in her book as she waited for the waitress to take her order.

When the waitress appeared at tableside finally, she ordered a grilled ham and cheese and a root beer. Short. Sweet. No cake beforehand. She was surprised when the waitress said “What kind cheese?” She’d not expected to have an option in a place like this, a place where she was not entirely sure that roach-free was an option, let alone a variety of cheese.

“Do you have Swiss?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take Swiss then,” she said with a smile and went back to her book. The couple behind her had several amendments to their order, including adding another order of chicken to the orders they’d already placed but had not yet been delivered, and she snickered silently. They probably would leave a crappy tip, too.

Her food was delivered before the couple’s, she noted, smirking into her root beer. She was half-way through the sandwich before she realized it was American cheese, and she had to laugh. It was hot, and it tasted good anyway.

She left a good tip, picked up her book, and walked back to the hotel in spitting rain to read before she headed over the venue.

Last year, he managed to totally space Valentine’s day, despite us working on a Valentine’s Day music project with a bunch of other folks. He apologized, I forgave after giving him a small amount of humorous crap about it. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t really matter, even then, and he was going to do better this year.

So much for that. Although…I did receive a sign and it made me smile.

I was never big into Valentine’s Day, whether I had a Valentine at the time or not. Just coming off Christmas, I wasn’t feeling a lack of gifts. But I find that the holidays, any holidays, even my birthday, have held less and less excitement as I’ve grown older, and now, since he left, I can barely be bothered to acknowledge them. So today doesn’t really bring me any particular sadness; the sadness is there all the time, to greater and lesser degrees, anyway.

Time has melted for me since he passed. It happened yesterday, yet somehow 8 months (tomorrow) have gone by. I swear he was just here, but I feel like I haven’t spoken WITH him in a thousand years, despite talking TO him every day. The arbitrary measures of time seem to have passed out of my reach, and I can’t say I miss them, but it’s a strange feeling. Past, present, and future are constantly present in my mind, one swirling into the next like a kaleidoscope. There is hardly any delineation, and I read books that tell me that, truly, there is none. Am I wearing the Universe’s watch now? Every day that passes brings me further away from him; and every day that passes brings me another day closer to him, too.

This Valentine’s day, I ponder how death has taught me about unconditional love. Because he is not here, doing what I want him to do, saying what I want him to say. He is nothing but "being" now, pure soul. And I love him as much as always, just for being.