In the beginning of darkness

I find myself in this dark place where everything outside seems either darker than inside or alien, as if who I am is no longer the person I knew not long ago.

Two and a half years ago I knelt on the bed of a person who I knew, at least in some inner way, was close to the end 0f her life. It was a heartbreaking knowledge and as I looked in her eyes, I think I saw that she knew too, but she was not as bothered by the awareness of death as I.

I had just lifted her off the floor and quite literally pulled her onto the bed I then knelt on. Her husband and daughter where there too, and the three of us struggled to not let her, and each other see our individual pain. But I knew we failed in hiding what was clearly written on our faces and the quavering our words.

We attempted to convince her to eat as if even a slight bit of nourishment could somehow stave off the inevitable. I held her up in a sitting position while she worked at swallowing a small spoonful of soup. An effort she obviously made for us and not herself.

When we accepted her inability to eat, I think none of us were yet ready to accept what else was happening. As I tried to help her get into a more comfortable position, with my arms around her, struggling to balance us both on the soft mattress, she had a heart attack. Pain crumbled her face as she gasped from its intensity.

"Indigestion," we thought and announced. When it passed she groaned and said softly, in a voice that seemed torn by the brief experience, "That was awful."

I still knelt there watching her as if I could do something if only I could understand what that something might be. Yet after it was decided that all she needed was to rest, sleep and she would be fine, I helped her to lay down, and then moved off the bed.

Although I know her passing was not something anyone could have prevented, I did then and do now believe I should have done more. I think that was when a small hole of darkness burst into existence that late summer afternoon, burrowed into my soul where it's sat and slowly grew as I watched people I cared about, people I loved fall like the leaves of late autumn burying me in a grief almost more tangible then the air I breathed.

I do not know why I thought of her recently. Might have to do with so many lives passing in the past two to three years. Reminds me of pages fluttering when I scan a book while searching for a particular passage. And not finding what I want but seeing something I need instead.

So I suppose when I saw a photo of an old harmonica that brought her name to mind.

We called her Mimi, but her name was Maria Rhatigan. She was born 31 May 1952 and died in an auto accident on a lonely road in the middle of the night in a town called Quogue in Suffolk County, New York. That was in March 1976. A short life filled with promise as she worked towards a degree in fine arts. I drove out a few days later and found her old Chevy. It did not seem damaged enough to cause her death, but if she did not wear a seat belt, that might have done it.

The car was parked alongside an old time gas station as if no one wanted to claim it, and perhaps no one did.

When I returned from combat loaded with unknown and undiagnosed PTSD, I often sought places of solitude where no one would bother me as I sat trying to feel my way through the mess I had tumbling inside my head.

I found a spot in a woods overlooking a harbor on the north shore of Long Island. I had my father's old harmonica, which I played while there.

Nearly every time I did, Mimi would wander into the woods and sit with me. She would not talk until I was ready and then we talked about the life around us not where I was while fighting, not whether or not I killed anyone, or maimed civilians as a soldier.

She was a gentle warm spirit and went through her much too short life with a kind smile, warm touch and never asked for anything but friendship in return.

I wish I had a photo of her, or even recalled the sound of her voice. I do recall she had a small red sailboat that we sat under when it rained. And I remember seeing her out in it one morning as if she and the breeze were all that was needed to complete a connection she alone might have felt with her world.

Why do we lose so many people like her long before they get to fulfill their dreams?

Grounded in Today

I thought, one day, that the snow would never end.
That the sky had split like a torn pillow burying the earth in white.
And window glass etched with frost blurred the stillness of midnight.
It wasn't a time or place where my mind could wander.
Instead, it was a time when emotion might.
No person should witness such bleakness and feel as tranquil surrounded by winter's blight.
Yet there I stood knowing that the past's door swung slowly shut and the future lay shrouded in mysterious height.

Larry Schliessmann 05 March 2012

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