The Way of the Wind

Note: This story contains themes of death by disease and may be deemed sensitive in its nature and/or expressions.

Water rushes forcefully into a white porcelain bathtub filling to the brim with essential oils and rose petals floating around.  The scent of relaxation fills the small bathroom in an even smaller apartment on the west side of a big city.  A thick, feminine hand opens the bathroom’s window and places a binder between the window and its pane to hold it open.  A train screeches past, rattling the entire room and causing bits of dust to fall down around the bathroom.  Then the wind blows through gently sweeping the dust about.  Brown eyes gaze at the dust dancing across the tiled floor with intrigue.  

‘Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.  Am I really returning to nothing?’ A woman wonders as she stares at the remnants of dust settling on her floor at her feet.  She catches a glimpse of herself in the medicine cabinet’s mirror and realizes she doesn’t know the person looking back at her.  How could she have known?  Who was there to teach her?  Now, it seemed there wasn’t much time to learn for herself about herself.  Diagnosis?  Cancer.  Cancer?  Cancer.  

She brings her eyes to meet them.  The tears sting her cheeks with warmth as they stream down her round, heart-shaped face.  ‘How can it be too late to do anything?’ The woman ponders angrily as she continues to stare at herself.  She’s reminded of the water filling the tub and considers what would happen if she took her life into her own hands?  She could simply submerge herself beneath the water and never come up again.  Surely, cancer wouldn’t mind, but her mother would never understand.  

‘Ma.  I’ve still gotta tell my ma.’ The woman thinks considerably as she reaches to turn the water off and disrobe.  Her foot hovers over the water filled tub for a few seconds as the woman allows the heat of the water to warm her toes with tiny dips before fully entering the tub and sitting down.  

Another train passes by.  This time, the woman’s focus is on the ripples in the water from its vibrations.  Her soft hands gently caress her arms and legs.  Her own touch, coupled with the dark emotions she was already feeling, created an unending amount of goosebumps on her body.  

“Why me, God?  Why cancer?  Why now?”  The woman cries out now sobbing uncontrollably.  

She notices a strong gust of wind against her body and can’t decipher from whence the breeze  has come since no wind was coming through the window and no train was passing by.  She quickly washes her body and stands to get out of the tub.  She pulls the stopper and wraps her towel around her plump, yet solid body then out the corner of her eyes she sees in the steam on the bathroom’s mirror the words, “TRUST ME.”  For a brief moment, she questioned her sanity.  

‘Was God really communicating directly with me?’ She pondered, then remembered her now ex-boyfriend writing the words after an argument about buying toothpaste.  Holding on to some grand delusion that he’d come back one day and his words would actually matter, was the only reason the words lingered as long as they had.  It’d been six months already.  They were really through and it was beyond time for her to get over it AND him.  She rolls her eyes and angrily wipes the words away with the palm of her hand.  

“And after all that,” she began, “ I still ended up buying the damned toothpaste,” she mumbled aloud to herself as she left the bathroom and turned out the light.  

The bath had served its purposes.  She was clean and more relaxed, better able to deal with the thoughts living rent free in her mind.  She dried herself and began her moisturizing routine.  Vaseline everything first.  Then go behind the Vaseline with jojoba oil.  Lastly, a scented lotion and body mist.  

With her eyes closed, she sprayed the sweet and calming scent of fresh freesias onto the pressure points of her body, but suddenly wondered, ‘is the body spray the reason I have breast cancer now?’ Her eyes opened in a panic as she flung her favorite scent across the room.  She paces.  She never paced before, but within the last two weeks, it’d unconsciously become her go-to pastime.  

“How could this be happening to me?!  I always tried to do  everything right!  God, is it because I had sex out of wedlock?  It was one guy and I promise I won’t ever do it again!  Please, God!  Please take the cancer back!”  She screamed into the empty room.  Nothing.  

The curtains in the tiny one bedroom apartment had been drawn since she got the news of her diagnosis earlier that day.  No sunshine had made its way into the woman’s space.  Working a job she hated usually encouraged her to let the sun shine in when she couldn’t get out most days.  Today, she didn’t care either way.  

In the corner of the far side of the living room was a single black sectional sofa, coffee table, and entertainment center with a sixty-five inch flat screen television.  Directly in front of the floor to ceiling windows were her plant tables filled with the overgrown house plants the woman affectionately called her “babies.”  

“Even if I don’t want to face this day, my babies should still be able to thrive.”  The woman said as she pulled the curtains back.  

Light flooded into the living room.  It was all ‘so dramatic,’ the woman thought as she watched the particles of dust floating upwards into the sunlight, dancing around her, and settling everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.  

‘Who told those tiny specks of dust they could fly any way the wind blew?’ She thought as she fancied the dances of the particles.  She heard her own voice say very clearly, “God.  God told them.  Don’t you remember your Word?  Ecclesiastes, 

Chapter three.  There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”  

‘Tis the season for dancing dust and death by cancer, then.’ The woman thought sarcastically.  ‘When I die, I would like to come back as something like a blade of grass, or maybe, just a speck of dust.  Dust can’t die of cancer,’ she thought as she stood in the opened window in her pretty, yellow underwear.  

Laughter erupted maniacally from the depths of the woman’s belly and cascaded down her body into a howling cackle as she envisioned herself reincarnated as a blade of grass, freshly cut in the middle of the spring or summer, then someone’s dog takes a hot disrespectful dump on her head.  

“I’ve gotta get out of this house!  Clearly, I’m losing my mind.”  The woman says aloud to herself as she throws on a yellow floral printed maxi dress and high, satin, hot pink blocked, platform heels.  

Where was she to go?  Anywhere the wind blew.  There was no plan.  Just a voice in her head saying, “Get out of this house, now!”  

She grabbed her purse, cellphone, and house keys and headed for the front door.  Inspirational quotes from Black women she’d admired in her lifetime hung in golden frames lining the entrance-way to the front door.  A quote from Maya Angelou that said, “A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim,” really stood out to her today.  With one final look behind her, she was out the door, down the stairs, and out on the sidewalk meandering about aimlessly.  

It was a beautiful, sunny day.  Warm, not hot, with excellent air quality.  The sounds of her high-heeled feet hitting the pavement rhythmically encouraged the woman to straighten her body and walk with poise.  Her humongous Afro fluttered against her shoulders with a bounce as she confidently strutted down street after street.  Her hips swayed with each step from side to side.  

Men looked at her like she was the ultimate prize and parted like the Red Sea as she passed by.   A group of little boys ran beside her excitedly to tell her how beautiful she was.  One little boy in particular was bolder than all the others, sweeter.  

“When I grow up, I’m marrying a woman just like that!  Finer than fine and walking on air!” The young boy announced proudly within earshot of the woman just as she’d passed him.  

The woman, having heard him, looked graciously over her shoulder at the boy and gave him the slightest, prettiest nod of appreciation before continuing on her way.  

“DID Y’ALL SEE THAT?!” The young boy asked the others excitedly.  “SHE SAW ME!  SHE NODDED AT JUST ME!  SHE’S SUCH A LADY!”  

The woman smiled broadly, thankful for the exchange, for it was the highlight of literally the worst day ever.  After walking for a while, the woman looked up and noticed she stood outside her mother’s beauty salon simply staring admirably through the display windows.  Nervously she placed her hand on the door’s handle, unable to push it open for fear of her mother’s reaction to the news she’d come to deliver.  She proceeded to enter and was greeted by a chorus of hello’s from everyone inside.  The woman smiled gently in response to the harmonious greetings.  

“What brings you in today, sweetie?”  Her mother asks sweetly.  

“Mommy,” was all the woman could muster before her words were trapped in her throat.  She pushed the tears threatening to come up, down as she looked into her mother’s concerned face.  

“Can I take you to get some ice cream, Ma?”  The woman asks, replacing the smile on her face.  “Sure.”  Her mother said and without question, turned her client over to another stylist and grabbed her purse.  

They walked silently for ten minutes.  The mother looked at her daughter’s face, studying it.   The daughter looked ahead, afraid to look into her mother’s eyes.  

“How bad is it, baby?”  The mother asks, looping her arms in her daughter’s as they’ve walked past their second ice cream parlor.  Silence.  

The mother begins to hum Donnie McClurkin’s rendition of, ‘Church Medley,’ as she rubs her daughter’s arm soothingly.  

“It’s the worst, Ma.”  The woman replies, finally able to look her mother in the eyes.  “Stage four, metastatic breast cancer and it’s spread throughout my body.  Doctors say there’s nothing they can do.  I’ve got weeks, maybe a month left.”  

The mother looks to the sky then closes her eyes in prayer.  The news was devastating!  ‘What about a second opinion?’  The mother wondered.  ‘What did God have to say about this?’  The mother questioned internally.  

“Ma?  Ma, you okay?”  The woman asks.  The news stopped them in their tracks.  The women hadn’t moved an inch in five minutes as the mother prayed silently and held her breath, awaiting a word from God.  

“Naomi,” the mother begins somberly, “May God’s will be done, baby.”  The mother turns and embraces her daughter, inhaling her scent deeply, feeling the curls of her thick crown.  Both women are trying to be brave, walk by sight, but none of this is easy.  A light breeze blows through them.   

“What if it’s not God’s will to save me, Ma?’  

“You don’t have to worry about that.  You’ve been saved.  Let God worry about that part.  Me and you?  We're gonna worry about getting in as much living as we can, in the time we have!  Miracles happen everyday, you understand?”  

Then, the two women rocked and hugged and a great wind swirled around them.  Onlookers passing by, stared curiously.  They wouldn’t let go.  The women never made it to get that ice cream.  

About six weeks later, the woman, Naomi Giselle Wiley lost her battle with cancer.  On her deathbed, with her mother by her side, Naomi, with one foot in the spiritual realm, and the other in the physical, spoke with God about her desires for her next life.  

The conversation between God and the woman, Naomi Giselle Wiley: 

“I don’t ever want to leave my Ma, God,” and God replied, “You won’t.  You and Marguerite are as you and I.  One, eternally.”

“Have you decided if you want to be a blade of grass or a speck of dust?  God asked humorously with a raised brow.  “I promise no cancer in your next cycle.  Although, I cannot guarantee that some dog doesn’t use your head as a toilet!”  God jokes and the two laugh like old buddies as Naomi considers her options.

“What if I don’t want to be either?  What if I just want to flow to and fro and just be?  Can I simply, BE?”  Naomi asked God thoughtfully.    

“It is so.  Next, I shall charge you with the role of the wind.  You may come and go as you please.  Seek and you shall find.  Touch all things from every inch of the Earth.  You shall simply, BE.”  

With the woman’s last words in the physical realm, Naomi told her mother to look for her in the way of the wind and know that she is with her always.  

Many years had passed by and with every random gust of air on her face, Naomi’s mother, Marguerite held a hand to her face, smiled, and said “I love you too, baby.”

On one sunny summer day, during the last walk/run marathon for Breast Cancer Awareness, Marguerite struggled to complete her race.  Her body was older, tired, and she’d invested many years into the memory of her only child by competing.  So, she walked on, slowly, falling behind, but determined to cross that finish line just one more time.  

A young woman, bald with the fight of the battle of chemotherapy, sprinted past her and her very essence reminded her of her Naomi.  The woman even turned on her heels to walk alongside Marguerite to the end of the race.  The two women didn’t talk much.  Their silence was understood.    Up ahead on the right side of them was a handsome young man and an adorably handsome little boy cheering for the woman.  

Suddenly, Marguerite wasn’t tired anymore.  She told the young woman, “You go on ahead, baby.  They’re waiting for you!  Finish strong!”  

“Are you sure?”  The young woman asked.  

“I’ll be alright!  I’ve got my second wind!”  Marguerite replied with a smile.  

Then, the young woman picked up speed and began to run to the finish line like she had been swooped up and carried by the wind.  Marguerite smiled gently as she watched the young woman blast across the checkered pink and white painted line, her husband and child rushing to greet her.  The young woman’s husband scooped both her and their child into his arms and spun them around.  An overwhelming feeling of satisfaction and completion came over Marguerite.  ‘Was this the end?’ She pondered as she inched closer to the finish line herself.  

Once Marguerite too was, crossing the finish line and within earshot, she heard the young man say proudly, “Look at my wife!  Finer than fine and baby, you was floatin’ on air!”  

Then, the sweetest gush of wind blew all around and Marguerite knew she was finally ready to join her daughter.  So she sat down in the grass, breathing in deeply, she looked up to the sky, peacefully and smiled.  “I want to go the way of the wind, too!  God, let it be done.”