‘Probably no one really knows.’ Absentmindedly, I take in the beauty of the Canadian wilderness around us and wonder whether having this conversation changes anything. Not the facts, certainly, but perhaps… something in us? ‘I always thought life was about making the best of the situation you happen to be in,’ I say.
Whatever that is.
‘The best, huh?’ She plucks a wood splinter from the post beside her. ‘Like the other day, when you got that call in thecafeteria at Halifax Harbor Hospital that hit you so hard you then wanted to climb down an unstable cliff with no safety at all?’
Yes, that was a mistake, and I really ought to admit it to her at last. But what would I say if she asked me why?
Suddenly, she steps closer, a knowing sparkle in her eyes. ‘Or like last week, when we had that man with the heart attack in the car and you could bear the thought that he might not make it so little that you had to tell jokes to him and to yourself?’
She noticed that?
Astonished, I look at her, and in the same moment, it hits me that my expression must be proof to her that she’s right.
‘Or like the day before yesterday, when we had that critical case in the ER and you refused to even consider that his heart might soon stop beating?’ she continues, her gaze still fixed on me.
She says all these things and looks at me as if she knew much more. I should probably get myself to safety from her, but somehow it also feels good not to be so alone with it.
Nyla reaches for my arm. ‘You’re afraid of leaving the moment.’
It’s not a question but a statement. Words with which she steps onto dangerous ground. ‘Please, let’s not …’
‘What are you running from?’ she asks, and in her face I see how much this question torments her.
Even if I wanted to answer, I can’t. It would lead to where I don’t want to be. To where that wound in my heart gapes, refusing to heal.
And yet suddenly I am right there.
Rain. Everywhere. In fine lines it falls to the ground around me, beads on my forehead, pelts down on my shoulders. It soaks the earth of the hill, little streams carve their waythrough the dirty brown down into the grass, and from there it winds on until its path is stopped by the marble stones.
An insurmountable obstacle.
End of the line.
‘Today we bid farewell and commit Camille Reynolds to the earth.’ The priest’s words echo in my endless emptiness.
Someone breaks into sobs.
I just stand there, motionless, numb, empty. I feel nothing except the paper in my breast pocket. Heavy as concrete, desolate as every single word that leaves the priest’s mouth.
‘Her body will decay, but the memories and the love will remain.’
No. They can’t. Not if I’m supposed to go on living my life without her.
The priest takes a shovel and lets earth trickle onto the coffin. Again I feel that damned thing in my breast pocket that she was so insistent on giving me.
‘May she find peace, and may we find comfort in the knowledge that she lives on in our hearts.’
Comfort? There is no comfort. My Camee is gone. Forever.
Nothing of her lives on. I live on! And I have to deal with that.
What’s the point of grieving? What’s the point of feeling the stab in my heart? So that the burning becomes even more intense, even more unbearable? So that I can’t breathe anymore, can’t think? Can’t exist?
No.
I don’t want to be afraid, don’t want to worry, don’t want to drown in grief. Life is too short for that, and the damned thing in my breast pocket proves it.
In the end, all we have is the present moment. This one breath we’re taking right now, this one beat of our heart. That’s all there is, and that’s all there will ever be.
