Continued
from: Spring
Issue 2009 Part 1
Summer Issue 2009
Part 2
Part 3 Conclusion -
“Separate Bunches”
My husband was an atheist all his life, and although he insisted in
not believing what
he didn’t see, though now it was obvious he was really shocked. I
loved him and didn’t want him to feel bad, I just wanted him to
control his temper and be “nicer”. There he was staring at me with a
confused look that made me feel pity, so I told him, “She wants us
to share everything evenly”, pretending that was what I thought,
although I was certain he had given me the right answer. He stood up
with a relieved expression and silently went to the garage where he
would spend much time there fixing, repairing and making new useful
things.
For a few months, everything was o.k. after that. We were moving to
our new home and I was very happy and hopeful, and though it was
very complicated, it was a fresh start. After spending two weeks
organizing everything in our new home my husband had to go back to
our old city for a few days. In our former home, when my husband had
to travel, I would ask a young girl that lived next to us to come
over every night and sleep in my house.
I was afraid to spend the night alone. Now he asked me If I wanted
him to look for somebody to keep me company, I answered him, “No,
don’t worry, I feel safe in this house and our neighbors´ houses are
very close to ours, anyway I asked my mother to come and stay near
me so I won’t feel afraid.”
Now he was looking at me with a perplexed face and almost yelling he
said, “You called her; you asked her to come to this house! I have
taken so much trouble to move you away from “her” house so you could
get rid of the bindings between you two and you call her! Now I was
the surprised one and said, “But why so shocked? You don’t believe
in spirits, you have always said so!” Now he restrained himself and
answered: “It’s just that I know all those things happen in your
sleep, they are not real. I have heard her many times walking on the
hall, but I know it’s only a dream.” Now he was almost screaming
again, and his face and voice told me clearly he was not only trying
to convince me, but himself as well.
He left the l8 of December, and although we were supposed to
celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary that day, he
really had to travel so we postponed the celebration. He left after
lunch, though I decided to take a shower before eating mine. While I
was bathing, my daughter invaded my mind. I saw her so far away. I
could see mountains, the ocean; so many things separating us! Images
and words were mixed up as tears rolled down my face. I could hardly
finish what I was doing. She had been living in Austria since
October 2003 and I had never had a crisis like this, we wrote each
other every week, she phoned frequently and came with her family on
vacation every year. I started drying water and tears, got quickly
dressed and went for my eyeglasses; I wanted to write down all the
phrases that were being said inside my head. Although the tears
blurred my glasses, I managed to scribble everything down and as
soon as I did so, I felt calmer and started writing it over on a
clean sheet of paper. This took a long time. I skipped lunch and
drank a glass of cold milk to silence the “rumbling” of my empty
stomach. Now I read slowly what I had on the paper and thought it
was interesting, but it felt so alien to me, as if written by
someone else. Since the 80’s I had become a storywriter. It does not
mean I did so often, but I had won prizes in several Literary
Contests. What I had written seemed to be some kind of poem, but I
felt confused, since I had never been able to write poetry even
though my parents did.
The 24th of December I was still alone, again I was
overwhelmed by a sad strange feeling and wrote something that seemed
to be a poem, this time it was about my mother. Now I read both and
thought, “Well, it might not be beautiful or brilliant but it seems
to be “MY POETRY!”
From then on, I continued writing whenever this feeling took hold of
me, and so I have been doing since then.
In June 2006, my husband became very ill. After 10 months struggling
for his life, he died. I felt devastated and lonely, but I clung to
the certainty that his soul would be always by my side protecting
and helping me.
After his death, sleeping was the worst time for me, the emptiness
of the room, the silence, I could hardly stand it, so I would turn
the radio on and play instrumental music very low all night long.
Not a month had gone by, I was sleeping and felt someone was shaking
me softly trying to wake me up, then I heard a voice, it said, “They
let me come to see you! They let me come to see you!” The shaking
went on. It was his voice! I was afraid to open my eyes, but I did
so slowly and there was my husband, sitting on the edge of my
mattress, looking wonderful with a bright smiling face and shiny
blue eyes. But I asked him, “How is it?” and he immediately
disappeared. I just wanted to know what the afterlife was like, but
I think my words made him go; I started crying and woke up, now I
didn’t know if I had been dreaming or awake, it all blended
together. It was so confusing!
In those first months, I went through situations that shook me so
much I wrote the most outstanding down and turned them into short
stories.
One afternoon I sat down to write some ideas and copy interesting
information I wanted to keep, it was a rather rainy day, though only
drizzling. A couple of hours later the wind and rain grew a little
stronger but I did not concern myself with the open windows and went
on writing, forgetting everything else. My husband used to say,
“When you are writing you ‘dive’ inside ‘a paper world’ and
everything can collapse around you and you won’t notice.” And he was
right. A strange sound, just like the one made by a key falling to
the floor, made me jump and brought me out of my absorption. I was
alone and the door was locked, but I felt fear. I got up and walked
towards where I thought the noise had come from; there was a key,
lying on the floor in the middle of the hall, one of several my
husband kept in different places and I didn’t know to which lock
they belonged. I took it in my hands and looked around trying to
find the place where it could have been but something called my
attention. The curtains in the living room were blowing wild with
the wind. The rain was coming in through the windows! I rushed and
started closing them; there was water running on the floor. Some
pieces of furniture were wet; I ran for a piece of cloth and dried
them in a hurry, then mopped the floor. His words came back to my
mind: “When you dive into papers you forget about everything else
and the world can collapse around you!” It was true; thanks to the
key, the situation had not been worse!
Sometime later, a noise awoke me in the middle of the night; it was
strange and very low. I kept listening…it sounded like a tiny glass
bell and I knew it was inside the house, three tiny strikes and a
very short stop, over and over, what could it be? I felt vulnerable,
I wished so much my son would have been there that night, but I was
alone, so I got up and out of instinct or fear I tiptoed to the
kitchen and got a knife, it made me feel better. Now I walked slowly
trying to approach the sound…it came from my son’s bedroom, I
entered and immediately knew it came from an old European clock I
rarely used. The alarm had become too low. I took it from the night
table and saw the button was in the ON position. Feeling puzzled, I
turned it to OFF and placed it back. It was odd; I remembered a
couple of nights ago I had used it as a “backup” to the one I
normally used fearing that it might fail. However, this backup
didn’t get to ring; I was sure of that, and I had set it for 5 A.M.
and now it was three in the morning, it made no sense. I noticed
then I hadn’t turned any lights on, there
was no need, the night was full of a soft brightness that penetrated
through the windows. I approached one and saw lit a beautiful full
moon and was mesmerized. I used to ask my husband to go out with me
late at night when there was a full moon and watch it for a while.
Most of the time he would fuss about it, but would eventually
humour
me. I looked at it with a comforting smile, and then after saying
good-bye to this very special friend I returned to bed.
It was a bright morning; I went to the small back terrace to throw
away some old papers. Since my husband died, I had gotten used to
speaking with him as if he were by my side.
“What a wonderful view, a clean blue sky spotted with puffy white
clouds, birds singing in the nearby trees! It’s such a pity there
are so many mean people in the world thinking only about war and
destruction! I went in and walked toward the door that gave way to
the hall, and suddenly I stopped abruptly, and losing balance while
getting hold of the dining table edge, saying at the same time “We
almost collided!” It was stupid but I couldn’t believe what I had
seen: A mass of air just like a column, as high as an average adult,
flooded by sunshine and with tiny particles rotating slowly inside,
was there right in front of me! I gained stability and looked again,
now there was nothing there, only the soft breeze and sunlight. It
must have been a mirage, just like in a desert, but I was shocked,
really shocked, In that moment
I was not able to think and I heard myself saying, “I need you near
but not so much, you almost frightened me to death”. I sat down for
a while feeling confused and shaky, I didn’t know what I had seen
but it had been a very intense experience. I prayed to God I would
never see something like that for the rest of my life.
The End
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