Friday, 4 Jul 08
One is the loneliest number
They come in herds, in droves, in well-meaning crowds. He presses each person’s hand in seeming gratitude - thank you for coming, thank you, thank you for being here - but his smile never reaches his eyes. He doesn’t think his smiles will ever reach his eyes, again.
He can see people sharing lively stories, laughing in their nostalgia. Somewhere inside his head there is a dull jealousy. How is it they can speak her name without doubling over in pain? After the services their lives will go on as his can never do. They will return to their houses and homes and to their loved ones. Their wives and husbands, their children.
His wife.
The children they will never have.
Someone pats his hand. “It’ll get better after the cremation,” he/she says. “You’ll have some closure then.”
Sudden anger wells up in him, so fierce and fatal that he can barely restrain himself from rising to strike the person down. Their grief will last three days - his will linger a lifetime. It isn’t the cremation that makes his throat close up. It’s the thought of what will have to come after - going through her things, her clothes; breathing in her scent that cruelly lingers in each item. Having to clear it all up, dredging up the courage to throw or give her things away. Hating the possibility of another person wearing that skirt he’d always said he’d hated. Filing their old photographs, forcing himself to go through each one, blurring and spotting them with uncontrollable tears.
Pressing her freshly ironed blouses to his face to choke back the weight of sorrow.
He sits alone, long after everyone has gone, and wonders when the grief will end.
JADEITE