Grieving Yourself

Richard had ignored the signs. His had been a demise that crept upon him slowly, his self-worth stolen in the lonely work hours, validation kept from him at home. If it wasn’t the expectations of his career peeling back the last of his resolve, it was his high-strung wife with her exhaustive demands. She taxed him to the brink of collapse. His three children had pushed him to the edges of bankruptcy with their private schools, designer clothes, and rehab stints. He loved them, but they had drifted from his reach, caught in the rip current of daily activities. His life had faltered, picked up momentum, and now lay in utter ruins as he rifled through the paperwork the nurse handed him.

“It will be okay, Mr. Darden,” she lingered with eye contact, forcing a faint smile.

“I know. It has to be,” he muttered unintelligibly, “there must be a way to right things.”

When he stepped outside, the sun’s glare, which normally accosted his sensibilities, held him in its warmth. The hospital grounds were steeped in green hues, awakening his senses, the air rife with smells, fragrant and sweet. For the first time in many days, no months, he felt a connection to the ordered flow of nature, on the cusp of an infinite understanding. Then he glanced downward, the paperwork stark in its finality. He bit his lip, tasting the metallic bitterness, the one tangible sign that he was still alive.

“Pancreatic cancer,” he said the words aloud, as if putting them to sound might help make sense of it.

The discouragement and despair funneled into a sudden anger. He grasped for a way back to that time before his death sentence. It had to be a misunderstanding; they confused the lab results with someone else. He was in his prime, a recent promotion to Director-level, the possibility of realigning his finances, and now it was being stripped from him, not slowly, but in a quick rage. His diagnosis was unfathomable. It wasn’t a solid wall he was pinned against. The denial was amorphous, wrapping its arms around him from all angles.

“How could I have only two to three weeks left?” The question went unanswered. He knew he was asking a ghost.

Richard teetered, his balance being swept up in the movement of passer-byers, the chirpings of the mockingbirds. He sat with a spinning heaviness on the vacant bench, feeling his inner reserves collapsing, surveying his options in his mind’s eye. It was too much to sustain, and he cradled his forehead in the palms of his tired hands.

He could feel a tear, one at first, followed by many rolling down the inside of his cheek, skirting his nose and the corners of his lips. They raced a hurried path to the edges of his chin where he watched the saline drops fall into the Bermuda grass below. His body rocked to the rhythm of the release, a cathartic movement.

In his concentrated focus, Richard hadn’t felt the presence of his bench companion, and he was jarred back into the present by her question, a soft utterance, “You’re trying to find the perfect thing to bargain, aren’t you?”

He slipped his palms over his eyes, wiping away the errant tears. He was afraid to meet her gaze.

“I am willing to trade anything, at this point,” he said, slowly turning to face this stranger with the gentleness in her voice.

She stared straight ahead, her hand reaching to tame the hem of her white dress as it fluttered with the insolent breeze. She sighed, not from exasperation, but an empathetic exhale.

“It’s natural to think you can buy your way out of this fix. There are all those sayings you grow up with like ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ Or ‘never give up.’ ‘Perseverance pays off.’ I can go on and on,” her thoughts trailed into the silence.

She tucked the dress under her knee, reigning in the difficulties, yanking away the flirtation of the breeze.

Richard averted the truth, “I mean, you know it can happen. You hear about friends of friends who get cancer or MS or have that unexpected heart attack, but you never think it will be you. It can’t be me. I haven’t even started living yet,” he raised his eyebrows with the ponderance, “Meg and I were supposed to take all these grand trips once the kids were through college. I’ve been mired in work for decades with the thought that there would be a payoff in retirement, and maybe even an early one of that.”

He sat up straight, a conviction flowing through him, “I will do anything, anything to change it. I’ll go to church. I’ll volunteer. I’ll make amends with my kids,” pausing he continued, “And Meg. I’ll make her happy. I’ll adopt a dog, or a child, yes, a child. I’ll take in a homeless person. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

His steadfastness warped into a frantic anguish, his voice tilting into desperation, “I’ll admit to all my sins, the ones known and unknown. I’ll change. I’ll be a better person…I’ll never take anything or anyone for granted again. I won’t. I promise.” His voice receded into the blank nothingness; his pleas fading alongside his vision of himself.

She let her hand rest on his knee.

Her tone, caring and pure, she urged, “Live fully with no regrets. Enjoy the way ice cream tastes and how sweet the melody is in your favorite song. Laugh at the simple observations your kids make, and revel in the kindnesses that abound. Don’t waste any more time. There is no space for grieving yourself.”

Richard shook his head with acknowledgment and closed his eyes, allowing the tenderness of her advice and touch to wash over him. For a moment, he felt whole.

Once steadied in his thoughts, he said, “I needed someone to show me another way to accept my failings. I needed someone to listen.”

Glancing to his right, the bench was empty, as if she had never been there. Richard swiveled to see behind him, raising to a half stand, his bent leg resting on the bench. He looked back and forth quickly and turned around, surmising he would see her disappearing in the distance, but she was gone.

“Where did she go?” he whispered, struck by the seeming elusiveness. He could still smell the scent of her perfume.

Lowering himself back on the bench, Richard reached into the inside pocket of his sports coat, and pulled out the scratch-off lottery ticket that he had purchased at the gas station on his morning drive. He half-chuckled at himself, toying with the possibility that lightning could strike twice in a single day. With a penny that felt gritty in between his fingers, he carefully rubbed away the grey coating. The small flecks stuck to the card and his hand, as he shook it away. For the second time in a span of hours, he sat motionless, shaking the card and looking at it again, bringing it close to his field of vision.

“You unlucky bastard! There is no way!” he laughed a hearty laugh, scanning the grounds with the hope of seeing his disappearing friend.

His focus fell on the cherry willow, weighted in white blossoms. It labored in the gust of wind, its wispy branches shifting then returning to their natural bent. He wished he could share his newfound windfall, but only misery loves company, and she was long departed.

Instead, his gaze alighted on a young female, holding her newborn, as she was being pushed to a waiting vehicle. They looked serene in their passage to the life that awaited. Richard instinctively jumped up and ran toward them, his bargaining complete.

“Please take this and do something good, something beautiful, something you’ll be proud of,” he implored.

She struggled to understand the exchange and the ticket he had handed her. She clutched her infant closely to her chest and eyed the gift.

Sprinting away, Richard turned back and playfully yelled, “Remember this moment, remember me!”

His legs carried him across the open lawn toward the parking lot, chasing a realization, a shred of happiness still within grasp. He tore into his dark blue Lexus, and sped toward the main thoroughfare, intent to get home to share his profound news. His family mattered; they were the only thing that mattered.

Weaving in and out of traffic, delicate maneuvers to spare time, he dialed the office.

“Yes, Charlie’s line please,” he stammered to the annoying receptionist, the one who always clicked her teeth and twirled the ends of her hair.

“Charlie! Hey – it’s me Rich. This request, well it’s not really a request, I won’t, well you see, I’m taking the next two weeks off from work. I know, I know, it’s last minute, but it’s got to be done, and you’ll understand. It will all make sense soon. No, it can’t wait. You’ll see – trust me. You’ve been great, swell, I’m not sure of the right word, but thank you,” and he let the call disconnect.

The commute afforded him twenty minutes to mull over his approach, torn between telling them the truth about his illness, or offering them a two-week vacation to San Francisco. He had always wanted to visit northern California, to feel the chilled air walking along the pier, exploring the myriad neighborhoods on their slanted streets, the smells of sea and city-life combined. Would it be fair to keep his secret? They could persist in the experience of something new, together and without the confines of his prognosis.

Pulling into the driveway, he shut off the engine, looking up at the façade of his Colonial-style house. His heart tugged at the innumerable times he failed to notice the enormity of what he had, and the larger scope of what he had to lose. A light in the upstairs bedroom was extinguished. The quiet of the evening beckoned, a solitude in knowing the inevitable loomed.

Once inside, Richard shouted, “I'm home!”

The gathered silence broke into distant murmurings and grumbles.

“Hey, everyone come down here. It’s important. We need to talk as a family,” he let the words tumble out with a forced positivity, a weakening bravado.

He sat down at the kitchen bar uncertain how he would tell them, if he could tell them, flipping the message in his mind, wondering how they would react to his mortality. Maura, his youngest and sole daughter, would be depleted yet resilient. She was daddy’s girl, the one he could count on in the worst of situations. Drake would be despondent, but it would blend with his normal angst. Dylan was the wild card, the eldest son who was dutiful in his support. Meg would be a quiet disaster, and he realized how much he loved her.

“What’s up, Dad?” Maura bounced into the room with her resilience.

Meg came from the laundry room with a folded basket of clothes, as Drake leaned in the entryway of the kitchen.

“Dylan!” bellowed Richard.

“Coming, Dad,” he shouted back, simultaneously appearing next to Drake.

“This better be good,” said Meg, tiring of holding the basket.

Richard took a deep breath and relaxed into a smile, a sad optimism in the words that followed, “I have something to tell you.”