No One To Remember
Title: No One To Remember
Disclaimer: All credit to Annie Proulx
It was cold and bleak that day, the wind blowing strong and wild whipping dust from the dirt driveway into tiny, little tornadoes. Grass in the fields nearby, dried and brown from the cold of winter, rippled like waves on the sea.
The last of the snow hid in the shadows, hanging on to what little time it had left, shying away from the sun as it peaked from behind high, icy clouds.
Near the rundown trailer sat the coroner’s station wagon, long and black, a perceptible aura of finality surrounding it. Those at the scene kept a discreet distance, unconsciously, of course, not wanting to recognize that this same vehicle might one day show up at their house.
The coroner and his assistant were going about their business. The police milled about, nothing for them to do at the scene at this point.
Standing at a distance was one lone woman, her coat wrapped tightly against the chill, her shoulders hunched against the wind. Silent tears rolled down her face as she watched the activity. Clutched protectively to her chest was a shoebox of postcards and two shirts, bloodied decades before, one still tucked inside the other.
When she had found her daddy that morning, the shirts had been laid out on the bed, the box of postcards sitting on top of them, a few of the cards scattered randomly about. It was plain that he had been reading them. When she had stepped closer, she saw one still held closely to his chest.
“Friend, this letter is long over due…,” she had read when she took it from his hand.
She had cried for a little while, quietly, as she sat near the bed. She had expected this for near fifteen years…known that this had been coming for a long time.
Ever since his friend, the one in the postcards, had died, her daddy’s spirit had broken beyond repair. His heart had been taken from him with the loss. He had no life left to live.
The grief, guilt and despair had been too overwhelming. There was no way for him to escape the pain.
One day a few months before, he had sat down and told her about his friend. He spoke for a long while of the times they’d had, the places they’d gone, how his friend had taught him to laugh and look at the world around him.
She watched as a spark came to his eyes, how he sat a little straighter, how he spoke softly and tenderly about this man. He didn’t say right out, in so many words, that he had loved him but she wasn’t stupid and knew what her daddy had been trying, in his way, to tell her.
They both cried at the memories…he for the loss of his friend, she for the loss of her daddy to the sadness.
Now she held the shirts and her daddy’s box of postcards. It was all that was left of two lives.
All the good and bad times, the love and anger, the pain and ecstatic joy…gone. Only she remembered her daddy now. There was no one else. No one had cared.
Only her daddy had remembered his friend. Everyone else had forgotten about him.
Now only she knew about their lives together.
She had the postcards but they were just that to her, postcards. The shirts were just shirts. They meant nothing to her like they had for him. She could read the postcards and hold the shirts but the reality of those two lives, and how they had lived and loved, weren’t there for her to experience.
She cried for the loss of what they’d had. She cried as she saw two lives vanish from the world as her daddy took his memories of his friend with him to wherever people go when they die.
No one would ever know about them and the love they had, gone now like the snow, like the wind when it blows through the field.
She wasn’t a very religious woman, as such, but she lowered her head, reached out with her soul and begged to whoever could hear her that the two of them find each other again…that the love they’d shared never fade.
It was just too sad for her to think that this was the end of it all.
Disclaimer: All credit to Annie Proulx
It was cold and bleak that day, the wind blowing strong and wild whipping dust from the dirt driveway into tiny, little tornadoes. Grass in the fields nearby, dried and brown from the cold of winter, rippled like waves on the sea.
The last of the snow hid in the shadows, hanging on to what little time it had left, shying away from the sun as it peaked from behind high, icy clouds.
Near the rundown trailer sat the coroner’s station wagon, long and black, a perceptible aura of finality surrounding it. Those at the scene kept a discreet distance, unconsciously, of course, not wanting to recognize that this same vehicle might one day show up at their house.
The coroner and his assistant were going about their business. The police milled about, nothing for them to do at the scene at this point.
Standing at a distance was one lone woman, her coat wrapped tightly against the chill, her shoulders hunched against the wind. Silent tears rolled down her face as she watched the activity. Clutched protectively to her chest was a shoebox of postcards and two shirts, bloodied decades before, one still tucked inside the other.
When she had found her daddy that morning, the shirts had been laid out on the bed, the box of postcards sitting on top of them, a few of the cards scattered randomly about. It was plain that he had been reading them. When she had stepped closer, she saw one still held closely to his chest.
“Friend, this letter is long over due…,” she had read when she took it from his hand.
She had cried for a little while, quietly, as she sat near the bed. She had expected this for near fifteen years…known that this had been coming for a long time.
Ever since his friend, the one in the postcards, had died, her daddy’s spirit had broken beyond repair. His heart had been taken from him with the loss. He had no life left to live.
The grief, guilt and despair had been too overwhelming. There was no way for him to escape the pain.
One day a few months before, he had sat down and told her about his friend. He spoke for a long while of the times they’d had, the places they’d gone, how his friend had taught him to laugh and look at the world around him.
She watched as a spark came to his eyes, how he sat a little straighter, how he spoke softly and tenderly about this man. He didn’t say right out, in so many words, that he had loved him but she wasn’t stupid and knew what her daddy had been trying, in his way, to tell her.
They both cried at the memories…he for the loss of his friend, she for the loss of her daddy to the sadness.
Now she held the shirts and her daddy’s box of postcards. It was all that was left of two lives.
All the good and bad times, the love and anger, the pain and ecstatic joy…gone. Only she remembered her daddy now. There was no one else. No one had cared.
Only her daddy had remembered his friend. Everyone else had forgotten about him.
Now only she knew about their lives together.
She had the postcards but they were just that to her, postcards. The shirts were just shirts. They meant nothing to her like they had for him. She could read the postcards and hold the shirts but the reality of those two lives, and how they had lived and loved, weren’t there for her to experience.
She cried for the loss of what they’d had. She cried as she saw two lives vanish from the world as her daddy took his memories of his friend with him to wherever people go when they die.
No one would ever know about them and the love they had, gone now like the snow, like the wind when it blows through the field.
She wasn’t a very religious woman, as such, but she lowered her head, reached out with her soul and begged to whoever could hear her that the two of them find each other again…that the love they’d shared never fade.
It was just too sad for her to think that this was the end of it all.