The Empty Jar(81)

And it will never be too full. It will never overflow.

And it will never be empty.

My eyes sting as I squat down in front of Grace and hold out the old jar. “Is this what you want?”

Light brown eyes, so like her mother’s, light up, and she reaches for the container. I let her take it from me as I hold her still and steady. As she studies the jar, I drop my forehead onto the side of her head, and I breathe.

More deeply than I have in months, I breathe.

I inhale the soft baby scent of her. It soothes my insides even as I conjure up a crystal-clear image of my beautiful Lena. She’s laughing, holding Grace close to her chest as Patricia and I chase lightning bugs around the backyard to put into this very jar.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

I’ve watched the video of it so many times. I know every word, every step, every expression by heart.

I grab Grace, securing the jar with one of my much bigger hands, and carry her from the pantry. I waste no time in heading for the patio. Although I haven’t seen a single firefly yet this year, something in my gut tells me what I’ll find.

I yank back the curtain, fling open the door, and there, filling my backyard with their cheerfully winking bellies, is a sea of lightning bugs.

Grace squeals a shrill, happy delightful sound, and I stop. Stop right in my tracks and just stare out at the display.

There are hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many in one place. But they’re here, in my backyard, on an early spring night, and I know it’s no coincidence.

As I stand taking it all in, a single luminescent insect floats gracefully onto the patio. Instantly, it catches my eye. I watch as it, almost purposefully, drifts in a lazy pattern that leads it directly to me, and then lights on the back of my hand.

Tears pool in my eyes as I watch the soft flash of the bug’s underbelly. It sits perfectly still, as do I, as though something as mysterious as the night is passing between us.

And it is.

It’s mysterious and healing and awe-inspiring.

In a strangled voice, backed only by the sound of my daughter’s gleeful squeak, I whisper to the little bug, “Hi, baby. I’ve missed you so much.”





Twenty-eight

Pictures of You

Nate



Twenty-three years later



I pat the last piece of tape across the twelfth box and set it aside. It still makes me feel a little tight in the chest to think of my baby girl moving out, getting married.

Growing up.

I realize this is something I’ve dreaded for a long time now.

It’s time to let her go.

Since my beautiful Lena died, Grace has been the center of my universe. Over the past twenty-three years, every star in the vast sky of my life is a moment, an event, a milestone involving Grace.

Crawling, walking, reading, writing. Her first words, her first tooth, her first day of school. Her first slumber party, her first boyfriend, her first broken heart—there are literally thousands of bright spots in my existence since Lena died and at the nucleus of every single one is Grace.

Her life, her love, her laughter, keeping her safe and helping her find her way were the only objectives in my life. Everything else came in at a very distant second. Or maybe even third.

In the beginning, I didn’t think I would ever be able to recover from losing my wife. It was touch and go for a while, but the night of the lightning bugs…well, that seemed to start me on the right path. Just like I’m sure Lena knew it would.

After that, healing began. Slowly. Too damned slowly, but still, it began. I remember Lena telling me one time that if you put away a memory long enough, it will eventually fade. That’s how she protected herself from her mother’s abandonment after her father died. She tried to put the memories away so they’d fade and cease to be painful.

Maybe that’s why I worked so hard to never put my memories of her away, to keep them as fresh as I possibly could. I never wanted them to fade. But the truth of the matter is, whether you put them away or not, they fade. Time and age make sure of that.

And so, while I still remember many things about Lena and our marriage like they were yesterday, a portion of the pain finally faded.

Finally.

Over the years, it’s gotten easier to breathe and laugh and live. But that’s as far as I ever wanted to move on. Lena was the love of my life. My one and only. Grace was my life after her, my whole world, and now, at sixty-five years old, I’m not sure how I’m going to fill the remainder of my days when she’s gone.

When she’s gone…

I pant, suddenly short of breath. Sometimes, just the thought of letting her go…

Of losing the only other love in my life…

A stab of pain pierces me between the ribs and strikes me right in the heart. Closing my eyes tightly, I grit my teeth and force myself to take deep breaths despite the ache as I massage my sternum with the heel of my hand. I wait until it passes.

Any other man my age might fear he’s having a heart attack, but not me. I’ve suffered pains in my chest from around the time Lena died until now. It literally hurts me to think of her, but I enjoy it in a perverse way. It never fails to take me back to the place where I felt closest to her right before she died. It’s like reliving a lesser version of her death all over again, but in doing that, it seems as though I just saw her a few days ago.