Still Here

It was already turning into a hot day and it was only 10 am. We left the harbor toward the gorge, passing London Bridge. “So this was her favorite place,” I thought. I had never been, although she had spoken of it many times. I felt uneasy that this is the reason that I ended up here, but maybe it was what she had intended. Those that were left behind would come here and remember her. And I still do remember her.

She died on my thirty-first birthday. I was not able to say goodbye. I was in southern Africa working hot sweaty days. Even in this technological age, the information came too late. The news finally arrived, it flashed before my eyes and the distance became incredibly real.

Two months had gone by and now we were gathered on a boat to scatter her remains. The water was a blue-green, and I must admit it really was a beautiful setting. I stood amongst distant relatives and eyed them suspiciously because they seemed so foreign. Time had passed and I hardly recognized any of these people. They were aged caricatures of cousins and uncles I had once cataloged as part of my family. Boats sped by intermittently and I could hear laughter from some unseen source in the distance. Her little boy was now a young man and her little baby girl now a young woman. Her devastated husband, turned inward and quiet. Before we threw our flowers, before he cast the ashes into the water, her husband stood up and quietly said “today would have been our thirtieth wedding anniversary, if she had been well, we would have spent it here.”

Almost three years have past and there still are days when I think I should call her. Cancer claimed her life and she is gone, and yet still with me.