There’s nothing except a few pictures that grace the bookshelves in the den. Our wedding picture from thirty-seven years ago. We were a handsome couple and very much in love. Beaming, radiant, young, and adventurous. Mel’s ordination picture from Rabbinical school. Eight years of hard intense work that finally paid off. He’s grinning from ear-to-ear and gazing out at his audience as he speaks so eloquently. His decorative kippah perfectly perched on top of his head. The tallit seems to envelope him in knowledge. His posture reveals someone who is secure and certain.
I wake up in the morning to his pictures on the wall and I go to sleep at night to the same. I don’t know whether I should cry or smile when I pass by that magnificent face in the hallway. I take in his hands and the gestures he’s making. Those hands spoke volumes and have been captured by one small camera lens. It’s as if he’s saying, “Be kind to yourself Linnie. Everything is going to work out.”
Nobody talks about him anymore. I want to talk about him and commiserate with others, somebody, anybody. The confusion and nightmare days and nights have dissipated. I still say the words “we,” and “ours” knowing this isn’t true anymore. It’s just “me” and “I.” People move on with their lives and are not concerned about yours. Recently, I thought about going downstairs to the storage locker to look through old photographs, but I’m not ready. This is the only trace of Mel that remains.
Call it premature or impulsive but I didn’t want his possessions hanging around. I cleared off bookshelves, cleaned out closets, and shredded papers. Maybe an old striped shirt or a grimy pair of sneakers could be comforting at a time like this.
But I think of a quote from Joyce Carol Oates, “The sun is setting on another day and I’m covered in loneliness” like the shroud Mel was buried in over twelve months ago. Come spring, it was time for his unveiling and I wasn’t prepared to relive the grief strangling my stomach and tearing at my heart. I didn’t want to go back to Mt. Sinai in Los Angeles. I didn’t want to relive this one more time.
In lieu of a big pile of dirt, a shovel, and a coffin, there was a headstone marking his grave and etched on the front of the stone it said, “Beloved Rabbi, son, husband, brother, and friend.”
I still keep the lights on like in Prague a place I went to after Mel’s death, fearful of the dark. It’s not as if he’s going to magically reappear or some intruder will set foot in the condo. The security downstairs is tighter than the Pentagon. The sounds and smells are comforting. The heat going on and off, Dudley and his four paws pitter patter, pitter patter across the hardwood floors, the hum of the dishwasher, the stale food from dinner.
I hear the streetcar outside and wonder where it’s going. Maybe to a better place than where I am right now. In the quiet night hours, I feel it the most.
*****
Linda Young lives in Portland, Oregon and holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. She is currently working on a memoir titled, Dancing in the Rain. In her spare time she loves cooking, traveling, and attending workshops and conferences. Her most recent workshop was this summer at Kenyon College.
