Paradox

I need to see his face again. The one I miss so much that I fear it will fade away when I’m not looking. I scroll past the apps on my phone searching out his photo where it hides in the background. There he stands, in the snow, next to our dog, smiling. That jawline I’ve always loved. The sexy glasses he always wore. The confidence he always exuded. And I begin to cry. Remorse settles in. Again.

“I wish I’d loved you better, Baby,” I weep. “I wish I’d never wasted a moment of time with you. I wish I could touch your face again. Hidden by your first-ever beard the last time I saw you, how I wish they’d given you the dignity of shaving your face like you always did. And cut your hair in the hospital room. I wish they’d treated you like the human being you were. I wish I’d sent them this photo to put over your bed so they’d better know the handsome man who lay there.”

But it’s too late for wishes. It’s still too late. Always too late. I am always late.

I pull the last Kleenex out of the box next to me and send it to its final resting place five seconds later. Kleenex. I alone am keeping them in business. Talk about a temporary life—pull one out, blow my nose, wad it up and throw it out. I go get a fresh box and toss the empty one in the trash. Disposable. What a word. Everything in life is temporary—even life.

I’ve been thinking a lot about time, as though it were something tangible. We set appointments using time and, if we’re very good at punctuality, we’ll nail that sucker on the head, showing up “right on time,” just before the second and minute hands cooperate and we’re on to the next moment. Congratulations. You were on time and now it's over.

We fill our rooms with clocks that never rest. We note the movement of shadows on the ground and observe how reliable the sun is, separating day after day from night after night. But outside the walls of this dimension there is no time. Time was invented by God, though I don’t know why. All it does is hold us captive to the things we long for but cannot have.

Like making time stand still.

Has it ever occurred to you that there’s no such thing as tomorrow? There’s no such thing as the present? There’s really only the past, and all it does is define our experiences in the remembering. When tomorrow finally arrives, it will be renamed “today,” which is really only a series of disappearing “now’s.” A local seafood restaurant banks on that every day, confidently boasting on their painted storefront, “Free Crab Tomorrow.” They know tomorrow is only a word. And the present is gone even faster than the brief second it takes to type its name. Go ahead. Try to hang on to this “present” for longer than a second. Poof. See? Already gone.

It’s almost as though time doesn’t really exist.

Time is mysterious to me. In all the years Rob and I had together, forty-seven since we first met, had I been told there’d be so many I’d have thought our last chapter was eons away. In truth, believing the end of our togetherness was way out of sight was the only way I could risk losing him. Losing us. It was a long way off, so far away that I convinced myself it would never happen.

But I was wrong. Time slips through our fingers. Melts in our hands. Evaporates while the sun shines and even when the storms appear. Until now.

For suddenly, time has slowed. Three days out it will have been four months since Rob left us. From the outside, that sounds surprisingly fast. From the inside, that’s the equivalent of one hundred- and seventeen-days times 24 hours. Two thousand, eight hundred eight hours of missing him. And every time a new day has the audacity to show up in my room, I waken to the knowledge that Rob isn’t here anymore. And never will be again.

Except I don’t believe it. Yet. It’s my brain’s way of trying to protect me from the harsh reality of loss. How strange. I can sit here and even write about it, but all the while my body and soul, keepers of the truth about this transient life, are withholding evidence. Despite all the crumpled Kleenex in the cans scattered around this room, I have yet to fully recognize my beloved’s death. Taking in that simple truth all at once would overwhelm me.

So, I will weep. I will remember. I will look for him in the moments when I forget he’s gone. I’ll listen to his voicemails, scroll through his photos, re-read his emails. The one thing left to me in the emptiness left by Rob’s presence is this paradox:

The man I’ve loved for forty-seven years is no longer here, while standing in his place, with no intention of ever leaving, is something that defines our experiences but has never really existed.

Time.

With many thanks to Pinksamurai Fairlady for permission to use the above graphic. The original can be viewed by following this link:

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