Positively Glorious!

You take the day off on Thursday.

You tell yourself that it’s because you have to prepare yourself for 7 hours in the middle seat of a plane. You tell yourself this, but mostly it’s just because you’re suffocating and need some space to breath. You feel like you’ve been at full throttle for weeks, though it’s only been a few days, and your eyes burn as if you’ve been awake for the entire time.

You wake to the last bits of evening snow melting on the ground in painfully brisk air. Strangely, the sun is shining this morning. The sky, having shrugged off it’s robe of clouds and dread, sports an azure skin that can almost be mistaken for summer, though it’s barely spring, and barely warm enough to leave your scarf behind.

You sit in the silence of the mourning and stare at the back yard for a few moments. One minute, two, fifteen, thirty. Looking out at the lawn you so carefully prepped for winter, the new patio you and your wife built with your own hands. You see tiny, tentative buds on the maple tree that your father-in-law carried on a plane all the way from his backyard because he thought you might like a maple. The first moments of spring hint at their awakening before your eyes, and they become increasingly difficult to see as tears swim before the images.

Crying, you realize what mourning is for.

Grief is not for the lost, but for the left behind. Your weeping is not for the loss of your mother, but because you fear the loss of yourself. Mourning, it seems, is a selfish act. You say this to yourself as you weep, sitting in the small swath of sunlight that catches your kitchen before it disappears behind your favorite Scots Pine. You tell yourself that you’re selfish, but you don’t really believe it.

Life and death look somehow different in the sunlight. The dark gray of the previous days showed you only the dark, gray side of your mourning. Might the sunlight show you a brighter side? Could that possibly be true?

Grief is not for the lost, but for the left behind. The lost need nothing. They are ashes and dust. Pictures and memories. They are wounds and scars. Your mother needs no grief, she is gone. Part of you wonders if she is happier now. She tried to commit suicide before, you’ve heard stories about it from before you were born and from after you left. Maybe she wasn’t happy here, and has finally found something to make her happy.

This, also, you don’t really believe. The sunshine is bright, and the sky is clear. The day is filled with spring’s promise. Yet you still don’t believe that. The courtroom in your head is quiet, but the verdict has not changed.

She wasn’t happy here. You know that. And the reason she wasn’t is, well, you.

Still, there are facts you can more easily face in this quiet morning, facts that the zombie job and the exhausted nights didn’t leave room for. There’s space here, today, now. You sit again in the silence of the morning and look out, watching the birds explore the ground around your berry plants. You’ll have to net them, now that winter’s over.

Now that winter’s over.

Is that what it means? You wonder. Winter?

Again, you cry. But the tears this morning bring you relief. The sunlight helps you face the judges cold stare. There are a few more clouds in the sky now, but it’s still sunny, it’s still spring.

Errands, you decide to do errands. Packing your clothes and your comfortable pajamas. You’re staying with your cousin, and hope you can wear your pajamas and drink wine late into the night talking with her.  She’s the cousin who got pregnant during your senior year, the one who made you the godfather of her baby. She’s the one that’s always ready to laugh with you. You always smile when you think of her.

Food– for the plane, for the airport. Travel blankets– two of them, one for your wife, and one…

…so that you can give it to your wife to use as a pillow as she leans against the window sleeping.

It’s starting to drizzle a bit outside, clouds begin filling the sky in that slow, somber way they always do on nice spring days. The sunlight beams through them, into the window of the bedroom as you pack. You pull your suit out of the closet and remember that you want black socks. You always forget black socks.

Into the bathroom, toothbrush, razor, little tube of nice lotion. The sun is gone now but it doesn’t matter. The darkness of yesterday was burned off in the morning sunshine. You are in motion now. You are moving, packing, cooking. It feels good to be alive again.

And then the phone rings. An out of state call. You look at the area code and you know that, yes, this call is from another state entirely. This call is from a state of chaos, a state of confusion, a state of anger.

The spin-up is innocuous enough. You’re sister asks you if you are doing alright and you make small talk for a bit, then ask her the same. Soon, however, the general emerges. Strategy is laid out, battle lines are drawn, the position of the enemy is discussed, plans are formulated, and weapons are unsheathed.

You are not preparing for a funeral. You are preparing for a family.

You, my friend, are preparing for a battle.

You steady yourself against the kitchen counter, holding the phone in one hand and your head in the other. Wait, you think. Wait, who are we fighting?

Everyone. You are fighting everyone. You can’t trust any of them. They are the enemies. They are out to rob you, to cheat you. They don’t care about you. They want to hurt you.

The general shouts at you, yelling to “Get into formation!” Screaming that “you’d better muster up!”

But this is family, you plead to yourself. They’re not enemies, they’re in pain. There’s no battle. There are no sides. There’s just a death. There’s a death, and there are a lot of wounded people, but this is no battle. Maybe it’s the aftermath of a battle– her battle. We don’t need time for strategy, we need time for healing. You know you are failing the general, even as you speak, but how are you supposed to know what side you’re on when you don’t see any sides.

This is not what the general wants to hear. The voice, filled with red, black rage, grows louder and louder, warning you, threatening you. The message is universal, all generals have the same message, the same ultimatum:

“We need you on our side. If you are not on our side, then you are against us.”

You can’t think, you can’t speak. You try to be calm and to understand the pain of your so-called “enemies.” You know that you left. You know that you are not entitled. You honor the debt that your sister paid to your mother when she helped her pay the rent. You honor the debt that your aunt paid to your mother when she found her unconscious and brought her to the hospital. You honor all the debts that everyone paid.

Everyone but you.

You are, in fact, the only one who hasn’t paid his debts.

So you say there are no sides. You say that you want to honor the grief of everyone. You owe everyone a debt. You will take no sides because you see no sides. This is not a battle, it is a funeral. You don’t have any enemies.

Ahh, but you do. You are now enemies with the generals. Whether you want to or not, you are flying into battle. The lines are drawn, and you, my friend, are on the wrong side.

The sun comes up, breaking strongly through the clouds before bedding down for the night. You decide to pack. There’s a battle far too big, far too terrible, already going on in your head. You cannot fight on two fronts. You prepare for your flight, and make a promise with yourself that you will pay at least a small part of your debt. You will pay pennies where millions are owed.

You will embrace everyone you see, you will look them in the eye, you will thank them deeply for everything they did. And then you will tell them that you are sorry.

You will plan no battle. You will draw no lines. You will unsheath no weapons. You will not fight.

The blade you feel in your back will be a penance. The spear in your side will teach you. The bullets will be payment for a debt owed. You will be wounded, but you will not wound. The generals will hurl such weaponry at you in words and looks and you will be tempted to fight back, but you will let it come without saying a word.

You will not fight them. You have no right to fight them.

The only thing that you will do when you step off of that plane onto the black, blood-soaked field of family battle, is thank them for letting you go.

And beg them to forgive you for ever leaving.