Beekeeper

In black and white newsprint, there are two photos of you. One is a photo from your graduation day, in the requisite robe and big smile, face still chubby, barely out of boyhood, without the sharp angles I have come to know. In the other, you are obscured by a beekeeper's baggy outfit, face hidden under the net mask, but it's you all the same. You are surrounded by a swarm of bees, like they are coming to your honey. I only pause to wonder about it for a moment.

Beside the photos run short quotes about the kind of person you were, from family, friends, professors; people other than me. I start to get indignant. No one ever asked me who you were. No one ever asked my opinion on how life would go on without you. I could have summed you up in under 20 words, all of them genuine, gut-wrenching, and deeply insightful. The perfect words; nothing more, and nothing less. Instead, they asked other women, other students, other confidants. One is from Germany. I don't know how I remember that.

As I put the paper down, my chest suddenly clenches in a pain that feels like an invisible hand is peeling half of my heart away. I squirm, and actually feel an arm cross my chest to protect it. I look at myself, standing next to the table, as still as your grave, and realize I'm actually looking at myself. My whole unmoving, unsquirming body, from soles of shoes to crown of head. The feeling doesn't go away. I twist once more, and find myself facing yellow bedsheets and the wooden side of my nightstand, half-naked and alone. No shoes. No church. And no obituary.

I sit bolt-upright, out of breath and shell-shocked, one hand still protecting that fragile, ripping heart, reach for my glasses and slide them onto my face, and look at the clock. It is 9:58 AM, and I am wondering if you are still alive.

XOXO

[Photo credit www.laurenshaw.com.]