Death

She was sitting alone on a park bench. Wondering why they always have scenes in movies where people sit alone on park benches. In real life no one sits down on the opposite end and talks to you. If they do it’s usually a homeless guy who just wants your spare change. She could name a few movies where the homeless guy actually ends up being the oracle of the protagonist’s destiny, but the chances of that happening today were about as slim as her staring in one of those very movies. When she woke up this morning it wasn’t to a musical score or the voice of an omniscient narrator. In fact she didn’t wake up at all.

Where did all the time go, she wondered? It seemed like yesterday when she was sitting on a park bench, free of her gravity ridden and sun dyed body. Ambition and wanderlust radiating from her core. She had her whole life ahead of her. Now her life was behind her. The path less traveled because it was her path to tread.

There is no white light. She isn’t hovering over her body. She isn’t dressed in an awful black frock that her children pulled from the back of her closet. The one they thought was modest and understated, but itched like barbed wire. She is sure they mean well. Doesn’t everyone mean well when you are dead? Unless you are one of those lucky people who leaves behind an estate that your family thinks is worth fighting for. She wasn’t one of those people. She left them memories and a modest black frock in the back of her closet.

There is no blinding light or pearly gates. There is a park bench. A place to sit and contemplate all the things she never got to do, all the great things she did get to do and all the things she never even thought to do. Her thoughts slip out of her brain like the seeds floating from a dandelion. Carried away and falling somewhere to start a life of their own. Her brain is clean. The voices in her head are so much clearer. Perhaps because they aren’t her voices. They are the voices of those who knew her, loved her, were drawn to her or have an obligation to someone who falls into one of the aforementioned categories.

Her son-in-law wants her to know that he never thanked her for giving him someone to love, but he always meant to. Her granddaughter just wants to get out of these tights. Her old boss wonders why he never tried to screw her in the copy room; he always thought she had nice legs. Her therapist is thinking about his father. Her best friends are telling a story from college, a story that til now, her children had never heard. Her daughter wants just one more day with her. Her son wonders what else he didn’t know. Her dog can’t smell her anymore.

She hears the words in no particular order.
Had one of the best laughs. Took her sweet time. Nagged and nagged. Smelled like jasmine. No, no it was lilies. Remember that time. Looked great in red. Red was her color. Goofy. Remind me of. Uptown Girl. She never got to go. I love you. I love you. I love you. I . . . loved you. I loved you. I loved you.

Her husband thinks it won’t be long now until he is sitting on the opposite side of a park bench. He always said he couldn’t live with her, but he knew he definitely couldn’t live without her.

She wonders how he knows about the park bench. She is still sitting on the park bench. The air is filled with the voices of those she left in her wake. She wonders how he knows about the park bench.

This still isn’t a movie. It isn’t her movie. But she thinks in spite of the circumstances, it’s nice to sit on a park bench wondering what it would be like to be sitting on a park bench in the movies, waiting for the leading man to come along and sit on the opposite side. He won’t be her oracle or her omniscient narrator because he is something infinitely better. He was a witness to her life. He is her witness. She smiles, knowing that when he comes they will sit in contented silence because there is nothing they didn’t get to say. A park bench and silence. That is her heaven.