We had just finished clipping gear to our harnesses when the phone rang, and, without a word to each other, we knew. The call was predictable and short, as were the tears that followed. We packed away the gear and the rope and descended as quickly as we could.
We drove, and my thoughts were full of you. It’s been two and a half years and there you were, all over again.
At the house just over an hour, a long hour, later, we split up the tasks. Some drove to the hospital, some stayed home. I had never met the last person to arrive nor spent time alone with any of them, but that didn’t matter anymore, either.
There was some managing and organizing to do, but mostly we waited. We didn’t know what we were waiting for, so that was hard to explain. We made up excuses that grew increasingly unbelievable, and we were relieved when the waiting was over and the truth-telling began.
And then we waited, one eye vigilant, and the initial shock began to soften. Fatigue set in.
When I wasn’t doing something else, my thoughts went back to those last days with you.
A flurry of phone calls with those who couldn’t be there, who needed to be there, who made plans to come, who are probably there now as I write this. I tried to explain what no one else understands, which is how desperate, how lonely, how cruel it is for the body to be somewhere else when the heart and soul are where the body should be, wants to be, cannot be. The mind spins a thousand tales and the time crawls by. It takes effort to resist calling every half hour, every hour. At least everyone who is there knows what’s happening as it happens. The distance, no matter how far, is crushing, and there’s no comfort when it’s needed. Waiting becomes synonymous with existing, even when you don’t know what you’re waiting for. No one should have to grieve alone.
The questions of what comes next and what happens now and who is responsible for what, questions that have been avoided all this time, suddenly appear perfectly rationally, calmly voiced by people who are anything but calm and rational. It gives us something to do and somewhere to bury the fog, even for a moment.
There is a stark and sudden shift between laughter over old pictures, tears over memories, and the utter stoicism of plans that need to be made.
We got home late and stayed up late, finally sleeping fitfully, a sleep full of too many dreams.
I spent the day thinking of you and looked for moments to talk about you. I’m still thinking about you now and writing about you, too.
As we walked up to the crag, the sky grew dark and we found ourselves under a raincloud that hadn’t been in the forecast. We stood at the base and followed the lines of our routes in the guidebook, pleased that the sun had come out and a light wind had picked up; the rock would dry.
“That must have been the rain,” you said as we hurried back down towards the car. “And then he found his peace.”
The roads were completely dry. That must have been the rain.
By Rebecca Michelle 