I'll be Seeing You

“I’ll be seeing you, In all the old familiar places,”

Billie Holiday’s voice crooned through the vinyl.

I tore the sheet from my notebook, crumpled it in a ball, and threw it across the room. Putting my hand to my forehead, I leaned in closer to the paper and began to trace the lines again.

“I’ll be seeing you, In every lovely summer’s day,”

I scanned the photograph in front of me, taking note of each detail: every crease, every angle, and every nuance in the lighting.

I do not know how long I sat there for. I do not know how many minutes ticked by as I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and twisted my head in different directions, erasing, erasing, erasing, only to begin a new line and erase it again moments later. 

Whenever the record spun into silence, I leaned back in my chair and moved the tone arm to the center of the vinyl so that Billie could sing to me again.

“I’ll always think of you that way I’ll find you,”

After a while, the picture became indiscernible to me. The face staring back could have been anyone’s, similar to how when you say a word too many times in a row it starts to lose its meaning.

Until, in a flurry of exhaustion and regret, I remembered that it was me. 

Except it was not. 

Not anymore.

“And when the light is new, I’ll be looking at the moon, But I’ll be seeing you,”

Hard as I tried, I could never be him again. The man in the photograph was smiling, he did not know what was about to happen. He had a few moments left in a world before.

“Before,” “after,” “now.” Funny how we try to define periods of time based on events, isn’t it? There are things that happen and the world refers to itself in sequences of before, during, and afterward. And then, there are versions of that in people’s lives. Before, during, and after it.

What is “it?” Maybe “it” was your parents’ divorce. Maybe “it” was losing your best friend. Or, maybe “it” hasn’t happened to you yet. But when it does, life will become segregated into chapters based around “it,” whatever that means in the plot of your life. And, unlike my case, hopefully “it” won’t be your fault.

“I’ll be seeing you, In every lovely summer’s day, In everything that’s light and gay,”

I started to trace my eyes again, then smashed the tip of the pencil into the paper and scribbled furiously across the page. I crossed out everything until a ball of lines were left tangled around my face and body before tearing that sheet out, too, and ripping it to shreds.

I wanted to capture the feeling of being me before “it” but the drawing was all wrong. I wanted to recreate that moment, to bring the person in the picture back to life somehow.

Only, I could not. Every copy I made was a cheap imitation. None of them were authentic, even the photograph was not real. It was a representation of a moment that could never be here again, something lost that could never be replaced.

“I’ll always think of you that way I’ll find you,”

And, I am still here, in the after.

After “it.”

Of course, in my mind, I know that. I know that I cannot ever go back to before. I know that every moment I live will be “after” now. But how can I ever be comfortable looking at the person in the mirror, when I used to be the person in the photograph?

“And when the night is new, I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you,”

I stood.

With a sigh, I picked up the photo from the table and slid it back into its laminate cover in the album. I thumbed through the rest of the pages, scanning each of them until I found one of her. 

It had yellowed with time, but she was sitting next to her brother on the steps of our old house with her arms wrapped around our dog. Her golden hair was braided and shining in the sunlight, and she had just painted her toes with the nail polish she had begged her mother to buy her from the drug store the night before. 

I could still hear that picture. I could hear her voice and the rustling of the trees, the cars in the street. I could hear her yelling at Sam to smile until he reluctantly turned his head back toward the camera. I could hear Toby, the Labrador, panting in the summer heat, drooling on the cement. And, for a moment, we were together again.

I touched my index and middle fingers to my lips and placed them gently on their faces.

“In the morning sun, And when the light is new, I’ll be looking at the moon,”

I closed the book.

“But I’ll be seeing you,”

I placed it back on its shelf and allowed my mind to wander to all of those people and places I used to know. Laughter, lights and the scents of home trickled through in a stream. I reflected on the things I had done, the things I was proud of and the things I was glad were not recorded.

Mostly, I thought of her.

And then I thought of the sirens, how the blue and red had flashed through the windows of our bedroom at 2 am. 

I wandered down the hall, humming softly to myself.

“I’ll be seeing you,”

I walked into the bathroom. 

The face from the photograph was staring back at me…but his skin was now spotted, cracked, pale. 

He moved to the side as I opened the door to the medicine cabinet.

“I’ll be seeing you,”

I pulled out an orange bottle.

“I’ll be seeing you,”

I twisted off its white cap.

“I’ll be seeing you,”

I poured out a handful of blue tablets.

“I’ll be seeing you,”

Then, I went to sleep.

---

At the service, they used the photograph of him that he had drawn and redrawn. They printed it on leaflets that gave a description of who he had been and what he had enjoyed. He probably would have liked the eulogy if he had been around to hear it, but they say funerals aren’t really for the dead.

They are for those of us who still have sand slipping to the bottom of our hourglass. They are for those who have an opportunity to live in the “after,” to move forward. Because, really, we can never be the people in the photographs. 

Not again, not like before.