In the Midst of Life...

DARK TIMES

I've known Art for nearly as long as I've known my spouse. We were close for a while, then remote pen-pals for a while, then close again. I was there when he married his second wife, Glenna. I sent a card from Africa when their only child died at the age of three.

A few years ago, Art moved to a town not an hour away from where I live, and we revived our close friendship. We went dancing together, the four of us. We celebrated Art's promotion, we toured wine country together. Scarcely a week went by that we didn't discuss some new item, sometimes by eMail, sometimes at a cafe midway between our two towns. We were contemplating a trip to Argentina, barely in the planning stages.

Then last Friday, I got a call from Glenna at the hospital. Art had had a seizure of some kind. Before I could get there to see him, he was dead. Passed away, gone from life.

Art was four years younger than I am.

We spent the weekend helping Glenna try to cope with her loss, so I had little time to contemplate mine. But Monday came, and I couldn't get out of bed. For the first time in years, I slept until noon. I tried to throw myself into work, but the drive just wasn't there.

Tuesday was worse.

This morning I woke at my normal time, to a wet pillow. I vaguely remember dreaming about Art, and they weren't sad dreams, but I still cried in my sleep. Perhaps I'm getting past my loss. Maybe I've accepted Art's death enough to confront my own selfish, scared reaction. That might have been me, lying cold on that gurney, wet with unfelt tears.

Perhaps my "grief" is mostly comprised of that fear, that shock at the suddenness of loss. I want it to be more than that, for my tears (even in sleep) to rise from my heart, not from the cold knot in my gut.

Mostly, I want Art back. I want to finish the eMail conversation we were in the middle of, I want to split another antipasto platter, I want to have the shared prospect, however distant, of a long-dreamed trip to the Rio de la Plata.

It won't happen, not ever. The finality of death is very much on my mind—if I seem curt or remote, this is why. Pardon it, please.
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