If I am repaired, can we meet again for the first time, in all of the places I have feared to go, and then, again, in all of the places I will have forgotten, if I am repaired?




SC




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Here is the desk drawer in which all of my odds and ends are kept, tidbits that would otherwise never see the light of day.











Saturday, July 6, 2013

On Answering the Door Last Night


I left the tuna salad on the counter uncovered, expecting the knock at my back door to be James or Mike—something incidental, something brief. Through the nine panes, however, I was greeted by another neighbor: the woman who lives in the dilapidated trailer on the hill above me to the east. Her apologies began as soon as I opened the door. “I don’t know if you remember me,” she said.
          This was only our second meeting. Our first had been at the front door, later in the evening. Maybe it was the rain, which had fallen steadily since early that morning, but she seemed to be washed in the same gray as our first meeting, wearied somehow by the onset of night.
          Of course I recognized her, I told her.
          “I’m sorry to bother you…” she went on, “but I heard you were interested once in buying that trailer I live in.”
          I had been interested. The land the trailer sat on was originally part of my property. I had already lost it twice to higher bids. The trailer, now, was really more than I had time to deal with. I certainly didn’t have the money.
          “My mother past away at three o’clock today,” the woman told me, “and I need to sell that place to have her buried.”
          Her frankness, I could see then, was an attempt to get the words out between waves of sorrow, and nothing I could have prepaired for when I left the tuna salad on the counter, uncovered.   
          She went on, breaking down at times.
          In truth, she wanted to be away from the place, rid of it. Her mother had died in the living room. She couldn’t live there anymore. She would take whatever I offered. As long as it was enough to bury her mother and move on. She trusted me to be fair. I was a good man, she said. She could see that by how I kept my place.
          I wept when I closed the door. I had never been in such need, until then, in the greyness of our second meeting. 

          

7 comments:

  1. Despite the sadness, I find comfort in knowing the mother was not alone, or existing in one of those State-run facilities, void of family closeness.
    Instead, her passing, surrounded by her daughter and all things familiar.
    I'm sure if it were possible, you will help.
    ~Jo

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  2. Oh God.... this is Life at its rawest...

    I guess we truly never know what waits for us every time the phone rings... or soeone knocks on our door.

    ~shoes~

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  3. That is loaded... so much to deal with. not easy.

    A good telling.

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  4. But it is ... easy ... help her out, man ... omg, this is sad ...

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    Replies
    1. :) thanks for your mail ... sweet! ... ^.^

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  5. A sad tale indeed. We really should be grateful for even the smallest of luxuries - which lie varied in the eyes of others.

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