By: Alexander Garrett, MD
Photo by: Andrew Thorne, MD
The first time he saw her, sitting in period 3, English lit, tap-tapping her pencil to the prosody of A Midsummer’s Night, he forgot himself. If this were a movie, time would have stopped, but life’s not a movie, and moments like this always feel shorter than reality. Fireworks, days at Disneyland, and snow days are all disproportionately short to the inherent beauty of their moments. Such was this.
The first time she saw him, slouching his way down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, whistling Armstrong, she found herself. Sometimes life is like the movies, sometimes mundane little moments hold an opportunity for introspection disproportionately long to their blandness. Looking out the window on a rainy day, catching a whiff of Grandmother’s perfume on the bracelet she gave you, watching your cat curl into the perfect nap-ball. Such was this.
She kissed him for the first time under the jacaranda, outside Grandmother’s after a sweaty afternoon moving furniture, after an interminably awkward teatime, he, sitting politely, smiling and saying the right things, and she, catching herself staring at his dimples, and Grandma laughing and laughing. Then they were outside, under the jacaranda, with the sun dappling their hair through the leaves, and she didn’t know what to say, what to say when you don’t even know if this time will last forever, so she closed her eyes and kissed him, surrounded by sun and warmth and pale blues and violets.
Together they traveled, not the world, but through life, through joy and loss, guilt and redemption, satisfaction and regret, strife and compromise. Their life was a summation of moments, a hill of sand formed from innumerable grains, moments fast, moments slow, some flickering for just an instant, leaving behind an aching for something lost never to be found or broken never to be fixed, some lingering agonizingly long as memory.
The last time she saw him, it was through a glass.
He was in a bed.
Scared.
She was too.
Scared.
Hopeless.
Empty.
She was given a phone, told that they could speak before they put him on the ventilator, before they took his voice.
What do you say
when you don’t even know
if it’s time for goodbye?