Wednesday - The Promise
Jan. 30th, 2008 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreI paid Death a visit the other night, just to touch base with him. I've been playing coy with The Carney since my cousin died, pretending not to notice him as I drove past the Ferris Wheel every morning, even though I could see him waiving at me. Still, he's one of the few real friends that I've got, so I couldn't stay away forever.
"How you doin', Baby Girl?" he asked.
"Melancholy. Thanks for asking."
He gave a wry smile and took a drag on his cigarette.
"Ah, you'll be all right," he said, and he tipped his head back to blow a smoke ring. I think he did this to try and cheer me up. It didn't work much, but I appreciated the effort.
"I'm all right now. I'm sad, but all right. I know how grief works; I've done this before."
"It's different every time, though. At least, that's what they tell me."
"It is different, but it's the same, too. Kind of like driving a Ford is different from driving a Honda; you're still driving a car on the same road, passing the same landmarks, hitting the same potholes, heading to the same place. I know exactly where I'm going, and that's what counts."
"At least you ain't mad at me," he said. It was a statement, not a question.
I gazed at the Wheel for awhile, taking in its rainbow-colored light bulbs and the ever-changing faces of the riders as the cars wound by me. Different sections of the Wheel look different. Some cars look new, and the colored bulbs around them glow extra bright. Others have rust and chipped paint, and a lot of the bulbs on the spokes around them are out all together. When you focus on one car for awhile, you notice that it shifts from old to new, and lights go from brightly lit to muted to flickering to burned out. I can only look at it for a short time before it starts to give me a headache, so I turned back to The Carney and said, "What's to be mad at? You are what you are. I read somewhere that 151,650 other people also died that day, so you weren't any busier than usual. My tears, in the large scheme of things, don't mean anything, do they?"
"Not true. Any tear that falls for someone else matters. Some people walk through my gate here still soaking wet with tears people cried when they were dying. I gotta tell you, I'm happy for 'em. It's the ones who show up soaked in their own tears and no one else's that get under my skin. Or the ones where no tears were shed at all, not theirs, not anyone's. All those tears you been crying make my day; it means you loved her. When someone's death matters to people, it means their life mattered."
He paused for a moment. "One hundred fifty one thousand and change, huh? That's somethin'. I thought things were busier than they used to be, but I never stopped and counted before. A couple hundred years ago, it wadn't near that many a day. Sure, they tended to die a lot younger, but there were a lot less of 'em. I thought things had kind've picked up these past few decades."
"With a workload like that, you must be exhausted," I said, "Maybe you should take a vacation."
He tipped his head back, blew another smoke ring, and laughed. "Maybe. But things would just pile up and I'd have to make up for it when I got back. You realize that if I took a week off, when I was done I'd have to take over a million people in one day just to get things back into balance? Folks would notice something like that. A hundred and fifty thousand dead people can slip by on y'all's radar, but a million at once and you'd all be freakin' out. When time comes to an end, I'll retire, but until then it's just best if I show up to work every day, just like I've always done."
The smoke ring above his head dissolved into dozens of tiny lights, like miniature stars, that flickered and then disappeared one by one. I'm not sure what's in those cheap cigarettes he smokes, but I think it's more than plain tobacco.
"I'm glad my grief made your day," I said when the last little star blinked out.
"Don't be like that, Baby Girl."
"No, I really am. Grief matters. It's powerful. It's a facet of love, and it's kind of beautiful in its own way. When you're loving but not grieving, you take everything for granted. You love the living, but you're still separate from them. When someone you love dies, they become a part of you like they never were before. The promises you made without thinking, you have to keep, because there's no going back and saying, 'Oh, I changed my mind. I can't be bothered with that now.'"
"See? You're getting' it."
"You know, she felt you coming for her. She talked a lot about you in those last few months. She knew you were right outside her door; she thought it her son you were after, but it had her thinking about you and she started putting her affairs in order. She told me that she wanted me to tell her story. The only things of mine that she had ever read were the letters I wrote to her and a few poems I sent her this last summer, but she told me she loved them. She told me I had a gift, and after her son died, she wanted me to be the one to tell everyone what she'd been though. I told her sure, why not? She was crying, and I wanted to say something to make her feel better, so I made that promise without even thinking about it. I didn't tell her I'd been writing about her off and on for the last two years, but I figured there would be time to come clean, and I knew she wouldn't mind when I did. I thought she'd get a kick out of it."
"So, what you gonna do?"
"What can I do? I'll keep telling her story. I have to: a promise is a promise."
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"How you doin', Baby Girl?" he asked.
"Melancholy. Thanks for asking."
He gave a wry smile and took a drag on his cigarette.
"Ah, you'll be all right," he said, and he tipped his head back to blow a smoke ring. I think he did this to try and cheer me up. It didn't work much, but I appreciated the effort.
"I'm all right now. I'm sad, but all right. I know how grief works; I've done this before."
"It's different every time, though. At least, that's what they tell me."
"It is different, but it's the same, too. Kind of like driving a Ford is different from driving a Honda; you're still driving a car on the same road, passing the same landmarks, hitting the same potholes, heading to the same place. I know exactly where I'm going, and that's what counts."
"At least you ain't mad at me," he said. It was a statement, not a question.
I gazed at the Wheel for awhile, taking in its rainbow-colored light bulbs and the ever-changing faces of the riders as the cars wound by me. Different sections of the Wheel look different. Some cars look new, and the colored bulbs around them glow extra bright. Others have rust and chipped paint, and a lot of the bulbs on the spokes around them are out all together. When you focus on one car for awhile, you notice that it shifts from old to new, and lights go from brightly lit to muted to flickering to burned out. I can only look at it for a short time before it starts to give me a headache, so I turned back to The Carney and said, "What's to be mad at? You are what you are. I read somewhere that 151,650 other people also died that day, so you weren't any busier than usual. My tears, in the large scheme of things, don't mean anything, do they?"
"Not true. Any tear that falls for someone else matters. Some people walk through my gate here still soaking wet with tears people cried when they were dying. I gotta tell you, I'm happy for 'em. It's the ones who show up soaked in their own tears and no one else's that get under my skin. Or the ones where no tears were shed at all, not theirs, not anyone's. All those tears you been crying make my day; it means you loved her. When someone's death matters to people, it means their life mattered."
He paused for a moment. "One hundred fifty one thousand and change, huh? That's somethin'. I thought things were busier than they used to be, but I never stopped and counted before. A couple hundred years ago, it wadn't near that many a day. Sure, they tended to die a lot younger, but there were a lot less of 'em. I thought things had kind've picked up these past few decades."
"With a workload like that, you must be exhausted," I said, "Maybe you should take a vacation."
He tipped his head back, blew another smoke ring, and laughed. "Maybe. But things would just pile up and I'd have to make up for it when I got back. You realize that if I took a week off, when I was done I'd have to take over a million people in one day just to get things back into balance? Folks would notice something like that. A hundred and fifty thousand dead people can slip by on y'all's radar, but a million at once and you'd all be freakin' out. When time comes to an end, I'll retire, but until then it's just best if I show up to work every day, just like I've always done."
The smoke ring above his head dissolved into dozens of tiny lights, like miniature stars, that flickered and then disappeared one by one. I'm not sure what's in those cheap cigarettes he smokes, but I think it's more than plain tobacco.
"I'm glad my grief made your day," I said when the last little star blinked out.
"Don't be like that, Baby Girl."
"No, I really am. Grief matters. It's powerful. It's a facet of love, and it's kind of beautiful in its own way. When you're loving but not grieving, you take everything for granted. You love the living, but you're still separate from them. When someone you love dies, they become a part of you like they never were before. The promises you made without thinking, you have to keep, because there's no going back and saying, 'Oh, I changed my mind. I can't be bothered with that now.'"
"See? You're getting' it."
"You know, she felt you coming for her. She talked a lot about you in those last few months. She knew you were right outside her door; she thought it her son you were after, but it had her thinking about you and she started putting her affairs in order. She told me that she wanted me to tell her story. The only things of mine that she had ever read were the letters I wrote to her and a few poems I sent her this last summer, but she told me she loved them. She told me I had a gift, and after her son died, she wanted me to be the one to tell everyone what she'd been though. I told her sure, why not? She was crying, and I wanted to say something to make her feel better, so I made that promise without even thinking about it. I didn't tell her I'd been writing about her off and on for the last two years, but I figured there would be time to come clean, and I knew she wouldn't mind when I did. I thought she'd get a kick out of it."
"So, what you gonna do?"
"What can I do? I'll keep telling her story. I have to: a promise is a promise."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-31 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-31 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-31 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-31 12:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-31 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-01 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-01 10:45 pm (UTC)*hugs Dawn back*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-01 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-01 04:32 pm (UTC)Your writing is beautiful, and I'm not just saying that because I've been more sappy than usual lately. Everyone should have someone who loves them so much.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-01 10:48 pm (UTC)It's a weird thing, I knew I loved her, but I didn't realize how much I did. She was one of those people who was always there, and I never stopped to think about what she meant to me. The intensity of my grief has kind of taken me by surprise.