A Thousand Letters

He took liberties, doing what he liked, taking what he liked when he liked it, rejecting me over and over again in between, and I let him.

I was a slave to my hope.

But I couldn’t hang on any longer. I watched as it slipped through my fingers, fading to a pinpoint of light.

The singer finished and sat, marking my turn. The poem was in my purse, then between my fingers, then resting on a podium stand as I stood before the people who loved Rick, their eyes on me for words of comfort. But the eyes I felt the most were Wade’s, like a stone tied around my ankle, dragging me down, down into the dark.

I looked down at the poem, took a breath, and willed myself not to cry.

* * *

Life is a walk,

A very long walk

That begins with a crawl,

A toddle and tumble.

But we walk on,

Sometimes to trip or fall,

Sometimes to run and laugh

Throwing our faces up to the sky

And our voices to the wind.

* * *

Friends come and go

Through the very long walk,

Our paths meeting,

Sometimes parting,

Sometimes meeting again,

Sometimes not.

But we weather the days we have

Finding comfort and joy

In togetherness.

* * *

When we meet the one,

The one to walk with us,

The one to hold our hand,

The one whose arms we fill

When the nights are cold,

The one to comfort

When their tears fall,

Trail of diamonds

On a porcelain cheek.

This is when we feel

The value of our lives.

* * *

We walk through the spring,

Our eyes on the long blades of grass

Reaching for the sun

The smell of life and beginnings

Filling up our souls;

* * *

We walk through the summer,

Lazy in the heat

Warmed by that sun

Which coaxed the blossoms from buds

Opening their petals to offer themselves

Freely, gladly;

* * *

We walk through the fall,

And the green leaves breathe their last

In a riot of color as they languish

The tree yawns and stretches bare branches

To sleep, just for a while;

* * *

We walk through the winter,

And the cold is bitter

The days of spring and life gone

The quiet deafening, a fog with no edges

But still we hold hands: it vanquishes our fear.

* * *

And when our walk is done,

The miles behind us,

A trail of footprints

Converging, parting;

When we look behind us

At all that has passed,

The ones we love,

What we leave behind,

What we cherish,

Is what makes our lives

Worth living.

Wade

Elliot didn’t meet my eyes again, only folded up her paper and walked off the stage with her head down, though I willed her to look up, waiting for her to sit next to me so I could hold her, take her pain and press it against mine until they were the same. But as my fingertips tingled, imagining themselves against her skin, she kept walking, passing me by to sit in the pew behind me.

My body went rigid, every muscle tense from my jaw to my thighs, leaving my lungs empty. A professor from Columbia made his way to the podium to read an Emerson poem, my eyes on my father’s coffin, more alone than I’d ever been in my life.

She didn’t want me, didn’t even want to be near me. I’d broken her, just as I feared, and now … now …

Nothing made sense. Not the things I wanted. Not the things I’d lost. Not the moment I found myself in or the moments to come. Not my uniform, scratching at my neck like a noose, and not the hard pew under me where hundreds of people had sat, saying goodbye to someone they loved for the last time.

I could feel the letter in the inside pocket of my jacket, resting against the backs of the medals I didn’t feel like I’d earned pinned to my chest. That paper reminded me that I had one job left to do before I could find peace for a moment. And I needed peace before I succumbed to the war inside of me.

"Catch the Wind" was sung as my sisters sobbed silently beside me, but nothing could reach me through the veil. And when the song was through, it was my turn. I stood, walking up to the podium, keeping my eyes down as I teetered on the precipice of my anguish.

I cleared my throat, pressing my palms against the surface on either side of the letter I’d written to my father.

"This piece of paper sat on my desk, blank and mocking me for days before I was able to write a single word. It was empty, and I’d been tasked to fill it with an explanation of what he meant to me, what he meant to everyone he knew. A description of his accomplishments and platitudes about how he lived.

"To say he lived would have been untrue. He didn’t just live — he breathed life.

"I could have talked about his years at Columbia and the influence he had there. I could have told you about the books of poetry he wrote, or about his love of words or gifts as an orator. I could have told you how he liked his eggs or took his coffee, or which of his sweaters was his favorite, or how he always slept on one side of the bed, as if my mother were still sleeping next to him. But that wasn’t who he was.

"How could I answer that question? How could I put into words who he was and what he meant? Because that story is different for every one of us. Each of you sitting before me knows in your own way what he meant to you, and that’s why you’re all here.

"Maybe it was because he supported you — it was one of his favorite things to do. He believed in all of us, an unflinching hope that we would all see our potential realized. Maybe he taught you things that you’d have otherwise never known. I know that for me, that was true. He taught me how to tie my shoes and how to read. He taught me how to love unconditionally and how to forgive, though those lessons were lost on me later in life, when they mattered the most. But even in the end, he taught me grace and compassion, even tried to teach me how to grieve him. Of everyone, he knew how impossible that task was, but he believed in me even then.