The Linger

I’m rapidly approaching the two-year mark since the death of Natalie. I wish I could say that time has made it easier, and I guess in a way it has, but I still find moments when the loss of her feels shockingly fresh. She still shows up in my dreams and I bolt awake with a knot in my throat and tears in my eyes. The other night I woke up crying because I dreamed of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase in her house, the one just at the top of the stairs. I dreamed of the smell of the books.

I miss her voice. I miss it every day. I have this list in my head of all the things I want to talk to her about, as if we haven’t spoken because we’ve just been busy. I know this isn’t true, but in those brief moments when I forget she’s dead, I exuberantly anticipate her thoughts and opinions.

I miss the way she’d say my name.

I know she’s dead. I do. She’s gone. There are the parts of me where her absence hasn’t yet settled. Two years later, those places are smaller now. And I hate them for shrinking. I hate the places that have come to grips with her loss; hate how my life has kept on going at a steady clip without her in it. I hate every holiday, every occasion for a hug or a call, every big moment where the weight of her presence isn’t. Those moments propel me forward and she’s stays in the same place.

 I hate having to let go.

 But I am letting go.

 I’m resigned to do it. I hate it.   

Shining with Every Movement

The rehearsal dinner had the haphazard quality of an event organized in the tropics, where both cell phones and responsibilities have spotty service. A three-walled restaurant with insufficient waiters hosted us and dinner took almost three hours to serve and sort and share the English-language menus.

In the midst of the ordering and waiting, an after-dinner dance party was deemed necessary, as only these sorts of things can be. It was hasty and half-hearted in the planning stages, but once implemented went on as most dance parties do. Nineteen friends, found in different stages of drunk and sweaty and committed, dancing in a large pagoda in the backyard of a rental house to “Seven Nation Army”.  I most feel comfortable as DJ in those situations. I can’t live outside my head when dancing is involved; I need a task.

The dance party wound down at 12:30. Everything was sticky; the temperature was still a humid 90 degrees. A moonless sky served to accentuate the overwhelming stars.

 Someone suggested we go to the beach. A narrow path cut from the rental house through the jungle and out onto a wide and white private beach. I was one of the last to arrive, and the beach was littered with piles of my friends’ clothing, as if they had disappeared out of their outfits as soon as they touched the sand. Skinny-dipping sounds emanated from the ocean—laughter, chatter, splashing and reckless abandon—but as I stepped closer I realized I could see from where the sounds came. The ocean was teeming with bioluminescent phytoplankton. My friends shone with every movement.

Not our beach, but very similar to what I saw. 

I was hesitant to join them. I was feeling much older on this trip, and thought that maybe I’d passed the age of group skinny dipping. But my friends were glowing in the sea and I was jealous. I wanted to shine. I stripped down and ran in.

It was as if I were swimming in sparklers. Every movement lit up my whole body, each kick left a trail of light. I couldn’t stop laughing. The bride floated by me, doing the backstroke through the teeming sea, her face glowing from the moment, her eyes reflecting the endless galaxy above and below.

It was much too much.
And I’m grateful.

(I was in Costa Rica in September/October 2011; I'm just getting around to writing about it)