Double Decker Bus

Your  mother’s  eyes  tore  up  when  she  told  me  that,  and  it  was  so  unnerving,  the  way  she  was  tall  and  pale  in  front  of  me one second – and  the next, she  was  tiny,  bent  over,  crying,  her  face  red  and  streaked,  as  if  suddenly,  something  wrenched  at  her  being  and  broke  her.  I  helped  her  up,  and  I  cried  with  her,  but  I  disagree  with  her,  with  everyone.  Your  last  words  weren’t  think  of  me  sometimes. 

I  remember  how  you  looked  at  me  in  those  last  five  minutes  before  you  died.  You  were  in  the  dark  because  you  said  light  hurt  you,  it  felt  like  a  burden  weighing  down  upon  you.  You  looked  like  a  child,  bundled  in  the  soft  blankets,  your  head  falling  softly  into  the  pillow.  You  were  sleeping,  so  I  sat  on  the  floor  next  to  bed,  and  I  looked  at  you  and  I  smiled.  I  was  just  sitting  there  next  to  you  while  you  were  dying  and  smiling.   

You  were  white  and  thin,  I  could  see  the  bones  sticking  out  of  your  face.  Your  eyelids  were  strained,  shut  a  little  too  tightly,  as  if  to  force  consciousness  away.  My  gaze  had  left  your  face  for  a  second,  I  was  looking  at  your  hand,  the  blanket  had  fallen  away  and  I  remember  you  had  told  me  how  cold  you  felt  all  the  time,  if  you  weren’t  bundled  up  like  an  infant,  and  I  was  wondering  whether  I  should  risk  disturbing  you  and  covering  it  up,  or  whether  a  hand  didn’t  matter  all  that  much. 

I  looked  back  at  your  face,  and  your  brown  eyes  were  looking  at  me,  and  you  were  smiling.  I  want  you  to  know  that  I  wish  I  had  smiled  back;  it  is  one  of  the  cruel  ironies  of  life  that  I  cried  when  you  smiled,  while  all  the  while  before,  I  swear  I  had  been  smiling  while  watching  you  sleep  and  slip  further  away  from  me.  But when you opened your eyes and smiled, I just cried. It is easier to watch a dying person you love sleep than to watch them smile.

You could not speak, and it was hard for you to stop smiling, moving any muscle was a struggle. I watched you, watched your eyes shift from being fazed to struggling in concentration, as you forced your face to obey you, you didn’t want to smile any more. I cried even more, holding your hand. We spent an hour like that, crying and holding hands, in the dark. Then I stopped. The coldness was creeping in and the darkness felt thicker, more solid. Maybe it could feel your soul leaving, and it wanted to push it back, back into that body which refused to smile and frown to its abidance.

I want to tell you things, that’s what I’d said. And I began telling you of two little girls I’d seen on the way to your home, and how they were dressed in the brightest, richest red I had ever seen and how beautiful the bunch of azaleas they had plucked were looking in her hands. When I’d walked past them, I told you, one of them had laughed at some joke the other cracked. It was such an alive laugh, the kinds when you throw your head back and your eyes close and open and you just laugh and laugh. I wanted to be the funny thing her friend had said, the laugh was that beautiful, I told you.

This was how I was ranting, about stupid silly things, trying to show you how I find beauty in tiny things and little girls in rich red on roads. I thought maybe you’d hold on a little while longer you know, just see me making a fool out of myself. When I showed you the azalea I had got from one little girl, I watched your eyes come back to life. The flower looked like a miracle in that dark room of disease and death and time ticking away.

You traced its petals gently with your fingers, and they swayed minutely after your touch. I kept it on your table, and a ray of light from a crack in the curtains fell upon them. That is when you looked at me and then at the azalea, then me again. Your hand weakly stroked your bony cheek. I could see a tear at the corner of your eye, and it dried almost instantly, staining your cheek. You closed your eyes; it took you nearly a minute. And when you opened them again, you looked at me, and your eyes looked just like they do when you are hearing a song you love, and you kept looking at me. I remember how I started crying all of a sudden, because I realized you’d left me. The darkness had given up. The light had taken you.

I tell everyone those were your last words – that look in your eyes, when you opened them for the last time. They don’t say anything, they just smile and cry; death has this strange way of making both smiles and tears one.

*

What is the one thing I want to say to you right now?

Come back.

I keep hearing all these new songs I want you to listen to, I’m so sure you’d love them. Delicious, you’d say, absolutely delicious. I try really hard, you know. I try to believe that colours are you. That all vibrancy in the world is a sign that you are well and happy. I tried thinking of anything good that happened- strangers smiling, a flower blooming, discounts and sales – as a manifestation of your love in my life from the supernatural.

Nothing works.

For all that is true, is that you died in the room with an azalea and me. That you were wasting away, each breath drawn a war on your lungs, your beauty fading away. I should be glad you are in a happy place now, where you are free and where you can sing. Maybe I’m just being silly. Billboard charts and chocolate cakes must be an eternal free feature of Heaven. Silly me.

The point is while of course I want you prancing away to freedom and glowing with health, ribbons in your hair, in green lawns, the thought of you being away from me and being well at the same time is painful. It was easier for us to suffer together, wasn’t it? Your disease was claiming your life, and your pain was claiming mine. With your salvation, my pain transcends time – now, then, or later, I can only be sure that you are gone and I must live.

And live, I must, so live, I will.

You are the neighbour of my universe.

I shall knock on your door one day.

I shall knock the day you ask me to come back.

This is your favourite song. Ecoute moi, m’amour.

-Sarah.

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