I wish.. (A Memoir)

As the double doors of the train stretched open, I stepped down the passenger car with purple bag dangling heavy over my shoulders. The bag that he gave me as a parting gift and assumed it would easily replace his presence! Funny, it in-turn acts as a constant reminder of what I had, once up on a time, when I was with him.

I was finally back in my city, the beautiful San Diego, mecca of my heart, home to a zillion beautiful memories. I love and hate this city for the same reasons now ! I stepped out of the station waiting for my Uber to pick me up, and allowed my once favorite place on the earth, wrap around me, extend a warm sunny welcome. I secretly wished for the dimension of time to drop away, taking back to the time where we hugged each other one last time, where I wished I would be happier dead than parting away from him!

As the salty breeze from the magnificent pacific blew over my face, my heart grew heavy and my fingers trembled. I nervously looked around to check if I would notice any familiar faces. Stupid me! Its been eight years since I left this place.

The overarching grey arcade, entrance to the station, under which Nick and I finally departed, aged, wrinkled and was worn out, but in my heart it still occupied a special place. The fears that kept me away from visiting San Diego all these years, crawled all over me, like ghastly creepy spiders.

May be it was a bad decision! I should never have agreed to visit Naomi.

Hesitatingly, I stepped into the uber, placed my purple bag on my lap and hugged it tight.

I knew it wasn’t Nick that I was hugging, but his bag has his lingering smell, even after all this time!

“Hola, Jenny. Mission valley right?” asked Carlos, the uber driver.

I knew that Naomi was eagerly awaiting my arrival, but I chose to visit Lajolla shores, the place where I watched my last sunset with him, on the day I left for Australia.

The vast four laned freeways, where Nick and I cruised in his dad’s fifteen year old open-top Jetta, didn’t seem the same any more! The city is now dense with immigrants and their lavish display of Tesla’s.

After getting dropped at the shore, I hiked to Nick’s favorite sunset point. The beautiful orange sun diving slowly into the vast blue waters seemed spectacular! But the sight wasn’t remotely the same as it was with Nick. In fact nothing ever felt as beautiful as things were with him. 

 Warm waters from the southern shore lured me, but I shyed them away, saving myself from Nick’s painful enraptures and left for Naomi’s place. 

 As I passed through the narrow streets of downtown, it got harder to shoo away the larger than life moments that I spent with Nick. The long walks, the talks, the parties where we were lost in each other, every single time! Tears drowned my cheeks. Soon I realized that I wasn’t over him. In-fact, I never moved past him. Living thousands of nautical miles away from pacific, far in Australia, still couldn’t efface Nick from my life, from my soul!

Wiping away my twinkles, I re-touched my makeup to fool the world once again, that I was doing perfectly fine in this world without him.

“We both want different things in life. I don’t think this relationship can go further,” were his last words to me. He lied!!

We both had so much in common than any other couple we ever met. We rhymed and zinged in perfect symphony.

How in the world could he erase me from his world so easily? Was it my short-term assignment in Australia that broke us apart? Was it something I drunk spoke to him? Did he fell out of love for me? Did he start loving someone else?

I hammered my thoughts again and again, with no response. Nick cut chords with me, abruptly, and I never heard back from him, not since I left San Diego.

Nick was a water lover, surfer, underwater explorer and a jetskier. Pacific water was his home and his relationship with water was like the one between soul and a body.

“Sailing on water taught me to be humble, to not give-up, to be strong, to be focused; a ton of life’s lessons,” he always bragged.

Nick always knew what he wanted from his life, which is what gave me a comfort factor, to be around him, to shoulder on him. It was not a love-at-first-sight with him, but when I was comfortable with our mutual silence is that I fell in love with him. From that moment on, it was only downward spiral into his world. Falling in love, every single time I met him.

A day, a week , a year , not enough to be in his world

In your presence is, I am curled

Not wishing for worldly riches

your love is all what I need in all my life’s pages

It wasn’t easy for me to leave him, break-away from him without asking a question. But what do I do with all his explanation as why we were not a good fit to each other, when he already made his decision. I didn’t need to explain myself to him. He knew me! He always saw me through my eyes!!

With past reminiscences latching on to me, I arrived at Naomi’s door step. Wrinkles under her eyes, popping grey hairs made her seem older than what she really was! We went to college together, but now we looked like mother and daughter. She aged super fast !

“I missed you,” Naomi ran and hugged me tight.

“I missed you too,” I felt her.

Eight years apart, has erased promises of life time. “We will never leave San Diego, we will always do water sports together, we will marry our love at the same altar, our kids will play with each other, we are never breaking-up with each other,” so many lies or so many kiddish juvenile oaths bound us together.

The one evening when I skipped the horn-blower cruise changed everything in my life. There was not a single moment that I wondered as what exactly happened at Naomi’s birthday party. I had to pick up my cousin from LA airport, so I skipped the party. Naomi, Nick and I gradually grew apart after that night. Many a times, I wanted to corner them, ask them the reason behind the ghostly shadows casted on all of us. I decided to leave for Australia the very next week. An opportunity that I have been holding on to, for the past two months. Had Nick asked me to stay back, I would never have accepted a foreign assignment.

“I need to tell you something,” Naomi said as we both entered her house.

“I am here for two days. I am all ears,” I said.

“Let’s go for a drive,” she said throwing my favorite purple bag on to her couch and dragged me towards her garage.

“Why are you in a hurry?” I asked, rather naively.

“Will tell you. Just follow me,” she said and pushed me in to the passenger seat of and drove off.

“I am now in my early forties. Don’t have the appetite for any major surprises, please,” I said skittishly.

Naomi did not smile. She was morose and was lost in her own thoughts. I decided to remain silent and in fifteen minutes we arrived at a mansion.

“Okay, I don’t think you are hearing me right Naomi. I am not ready for any surprise parties. Please,” I said in an elevated tone.

“Come with me. Just follow me,” she said and dragged me into the house.

An old lady, who seemed to be in her sixties opened the door for us. And without saying a word closed the door behind us.

As Naomi glided on to the staircase, I followed her like a shadow. She seemed to be very familiar with the house. Soon we were at a closed door of one of the largest rooms on the floor.

“I never wanted to do this. I am sorry,” she said and opened the door.

I was confused, didn’t know what I was walking into. So I followed behind her into the room. A large bed lied at the center of the room surrounded by IVF and heart monitoring devices. And on the bed lied a weak, skinny man, who seemed walking into death.

“Nick…Nick..Nick,” I screamed and ran towards him.

“What happened to you? Why are you lying here? Who did this to you?” I shook him vigorously, grabbing his feeble body between my arms.

Nick opened his eyes, rather painfully, stared into my face and asked, “who are you?”

“What in the world happened to Nick? Naomi, please answer me?” I ran back to Naomi and fell on her feet.

“Young-onset Alzheimer’s,” Naomi cried.

“What? When did this happen? Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I sobbed and ran back to Nick’s bed and hugged him tight, staring at his debilitated body.

“That day, on the cruise, is when he got his test results. He met a specialist the following day and learnt his condition has no cure. He was worried that he will forget you, but he was more worried that you will be devastated seeing him forget you. So he broke up with you. Sent you off to Australia,” Naomi cried.

“This is not fair. He has no right to decide my life. No right to determine what I wanted,” I stared at Nick with drenched eyes, cursing myself as why I didn’t see this coming.

“We all told that. I tried telling you the truth, but he took an oath from me.”

“So why now?”

“Last week Nick’s lab tests indicated a wildly spread brain tumor. We don’t know when he will leave this world. So had to force you to come and visit him, one last time,” she cried.

“There must be something that we can do…specialist ..some doctor,”

“Nope. Nick’s father tried everyone. Now he doesn’t remember his father too. He might soon forget to breath. His autonomous brain function is slowly shutting itself down.”

“No.. I won’t let that happen. I can’t lose you, I can’t live without you..,” I cried on Nick’s bed.

Flashes of the moments that I spent with Nick rolled infront of me, killed me from within.

I wished I didn't mistake the love of my life, I wished I never give-up on the hope, I wished I tried recuperating the relationship that seemed to end but never did end, I wished I never applied for internship in Australia, I wished I had done everything different!

Many wishes, many undoable regrets! I lied beside lifeless Nick, hugging him tight.

“Jen,” a whisper travelled through my ears into my brain and I woke up jolted to see Nick. He called my name, I heard him, he remembered me !

“Nick, Nick, wake up,” I cried. But he was gone. His beautiful soul left his troubled body to glide among the angels, waiting for me to meet him at the horizon, soon!