Six Ways To Say "I'm Sorry..."

But am I?

Tamara 

When I finally made it home that night after waiting behind the building and making sure Slim got on a bus safely, I was drained and emotionally exhausted. I knew I had no right to expect Slim to come to my father’s funeral, but I had really thought he would make it. Upset that I truly had no reason to be so upset, I collapsed into my bed with all my clothes on and fell asleep.

The next day was average for a friday, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus on anything all day. My boss was pretty pissed at first, but when I explained my father’s funeral was tonight, he was a bit more understanding. I couldn’t help but wish silently that Slim’s plans would change; I had been relying more and more on his strength of late. He was a silent and sure landmark in the rapidly changing landscape that was my life, and I had become quickly attached. Drifting through the day, I barely noticed when 5:00 came around. I took a city bus to the funeral home, and I hesitated at the doorway, knowing what lay inside. Walking in there was one thing in theory and yet another beast entirely in real life.

Life was surreal in those seconds between my father and the doors. Time was flying by me at light speed, burning my memories and blurring reality, and through it all I kept walking, somehow. I couldn’t walk fast enough, and yet, I was entirely too quick. I fumble with an object in my hands and it falls through my trembling fingers, but it doesn’t matter. My body was overloading with mixed emotions of joy, at seeing my father again, and grief, at his state. Someone may have been speaking at some point, but I paid them no mind. Questions flooded my brain, filling every nook and cranny of my overstuffed mind. Will he look the same? Will I cry? Is he still my dad? Do I have to use past tense? I had to, had to see him, but did I? Crying and laughing and dying inside all at once is the only accurate description I had of that moment, and then I really was laughing and crying and dying and somehow I think I managed to die a little when I saw him, because he was everything and then nothing like my dad, it was him but he wasn’t anywhere to be found, and I was sure I would die of crying too much, too hard, too desperately...

Gone...

Gone...

Gone...

Grief gripped me, held me close with firm hands and a warm body, encasing me in his beautiful reality, and then I saw that it wasn’t grief but something far more welcome, far more solid and quiet and tangible and I held onto Slim with abandon, boundaries erased with each second only to be built in front of a warm fire, away from its glacial past. The fire was warm, and I relished in its heat, drifting away from the reality presented to me, drifting towards a painless, deep sleep...

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Slim (Friday)

I awoke early, anticipating the day ahead to be long but necessary. It was an average day at work, but my head was in the clouds for most of it. Making sure my boss was aware of my early leave- after all, I had work to do- I set off. The work turned out to be simple, as I had taken care of most arrangements the day before

I felt a lot of emotions that day; more than I had before, mostly due to my detached nature. I was nervous when I saw Tamara in the doorway. I was worried when she didn’t notice me, or ignored me. I was concerned when I saw her hands shake so much her keys tumbled to the ground. I was surprised when I saw that Tamara had dry eyes throughout the sermon. To say that these were the only emotions I felt is a ridiculous and completely untrue statement, but when I saw Tamara collapse in front of her father’s open casket, sobbing as if sobbing could bring him back, bawling as if tears couldn’t possibly express her suffering, well... something inside me snapped, and I felt it all- all these things I could never feel, had never felt, had repressed into something less than memory, less than dreams. I was at peace when I held Tamara, this miracle woman, this saint who had brought me peace in five days where many had failed after years. I held the person that had saved me and destroyed me all at once, and I had no intention of letting her go.