Mystery and Memory
Six
of us, longtime friends, gathered to celebrate what turned out to be our last
New Year’s Eve together. Woody and Karunna, my husband Evarts and I joined
Valerie and Prasad in their rambling California home. We lingered over an
intimate dinner until it was time for Woody and Karuna to slip away to a Hindu
temple service. The rest of us shifted to the living room.
Shortly
before midnight, Valerie apologetically brought up finding blood in her urine,
something her doctor dismissed as unimportant. She was reluctant to spoil our
time together; however, fear that something was mortally wrong pushed Valerie
to spill out her concern. My husband, a physician, asked for the medical report,
reviewed it, and said, “Blood in the urine is never insignificant. You need to
get a second opinion as soon as possible.”
A
faint smile played around Valerie’s mouth, then she quickly veered into a
haunting dream. She was standing in a field of flowers when her father came to
her and lovingly bandaged her kidneys. I asked Valerie what she thought the
dream meant. “I know what it means,” she said, her voice dissolving into a
whispery trail. I instantly knew what the dream meant, too. Valerie was making her transition into the
Elysian Fields, the resting place of departed souls in ancient Greece. The
realization of her imminent death covered me in a dark veil.
Before
breakfast the following morning, I pulled Prasad aside and asked if he took
Valerie’s dream seriously. “No, not at all,” he said, she’s going to get
better.” As Evarts and I stood in the wide threshold, ready to pass into the
bright sunlight of that New Year’s Day, I surprised myself by blurting out: “We
will never see Valerie again.” My blunt words stunned Evarts.
Soon
after our visit, Prasad called to tell us Valerie was in intensive care. I told
him we would leave right away. “That’s very sweet of you, but don’t come. It’s
too long of a drive.” I suspect he was also thinking about my aging husband who
was approaching death, what Evarts called graduation. We left immediately, and,
to our surprise, met Woody in the hospital parking lot.
The
three of us walked into Valerie’s cubicle and witnessed a nurse and Prasad
trying to put a tube down her throat. Valerie hands were flailing, her head
thrashing about. She caught sight of us and waved everyone away. Prasad turned
and asked us to leave.
We sat in the waiting room for hours while
Valerie slept. A nurse finally suggested we go home. I asked the others if I
could stand in the hallway outside Valerie’s space. “I want to leave knowing
that Valerie is at rest,” I explained. Everyone discouraged me. I never
understood why and live with the vision of Valerie struggling to embrace sure death.
Later,
Prasad told us that after we left, he heard “Red Code, Red Code” echoing
through the halls. He suspected Valerie was gone. She was.
Valerie’s
funeral was held in a light-filled chapel, high on a bluff above Newport Beach.
The well of my tears cracked open. Karuna fed me tissues to absorb them. By the
end of the service, my hands grasped a crumpled sodden wad, as heavy as my
heart.
I was mystified by my deep emotional reaction
and public display. Was it because I now lived with that final image of Valerie’s
painful exit?
Karuna
offered another explanation, one that startled me. She said, “Your sorrow is
spawned by an earlier life in France when you were Valerie’s lady-in-waiting.” Intriguing as those words were, they did not help
me embrace my sadness or assuage my grief. Prasad struggled with a grinding sorrow, too.
Every time we spoke on the phone, he cried, compounding sorrow upon sorrow for both
of us.
Prasad decided to sue Valerie’s doctors for
her wrongful death. In addition to ignoring blood in her urine, the doctors had
misdiagnosed her illness, sentencing her to a staggeringly swift death. Valerie
and Prasad were partners in a successful photography business, and he also requested
damages for loss of income.
Prasad
asked Evarts and me to testify, and, I quickly said yes. His lawyer was very
specific about our participation. Evarts was not to testify. If I took the
stand, I was not to mention the dream. The decisions befuddled me, particularly
since no explanation was provided. Wouldn’t a medical doctor’s testimony carry
more weight than mine, a friend? Would it really harm the case to mention the knowledge
I had intuited about Valerie’s impending death?
At
the trial, I was deeply offended by a red herring put forth by the defense
attorney. He stated that Valerie and Prasad’s marriage had broken down, based
on the fact that Valerie had checked “widow” on a medical form. I assured the
jury that she had made a mistake. “Valerie was the love of Prasad’s life.” I
insisted the couple had not been estranged.
I
stepped down from the witness stand and took my seat in the gallery. Once more
I was drowning in the overwhelming grief that had flooded over me at Valerie’s
funeral. Tears dropped into my lap, sobs rose from my gut. All eyes in the
courtroom fell on me. I willed myself to silence.
Prasad
lost the trial. I could have cried at the verdict. I didn’t. I had grieved
enough.
From
time to time, I prepare Valerie’s recipe: spinach leaves and minced garlic sautéed
in olive oil. When I do, inexplicable mystery twines with tender memories.
Memories that hover like mist over the river of life.
Fay L. Loomis
Fay L. Loomis was a nemophilist (haunter of the woods) until
her hikes in upstate New York were abruptly ended by a stroke; she now lives a
particularly quiet life. A member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers and
Rats Ass Review Workshop, her poetry and prose are published in It
Ought To Be Magazine, Kaleidoscope, Synchronized Chaos Magazine, The
Blue Mountain Review, Spillwords, Fevers of the Mind, and
elsewhere. Her poetry is included in five anthologies.