Eight*

Posted on December 24 2011 by J.W. Richmond

Eight years later, the world still moves as if nothing ever happened.

Outside the dirty window of the dark bar, people shuffle along the sidewalk, kicking the snow as they sip their hot chocolate or black coffee or decaf, skinny caramel macchiatos from their red paper cups.

But I’m paralyzed, still waiting to hear his slightly scratchy voice from years of after-dinner cigars, and see him wink in that weird way he did, without meaning to, or even knowing he was doing it in the first place.

Winter was Dad’s favorite time of year, and he loved the snow. We used to rent a cabin up in Mammoth over winter break and my brother and I would snowboard while Mom and Dad curled up on the couch next to the fire and read to each other.

I met my wife in the lodge there when I was 19. She was sitting on one of the couches, with her foot up on a coffee table in front of her. She had twisted her ankle and was trying to reach out to pick up her coffee, but couldn’t quite get her fingertips to touch the cup handle. I walked over to help and accidentally tipped the mug over, spilling the coffee all over the table and the floor. Not the entrance I had hoped. I heard soft clapping behind me and it was Dad, laughing at the scene. I shooed him away, bought that girl a new cup of coffee and we had our first date right there.

He never even got to meet our daughter. She was born six months after the accident. It wasn’t fair that she would never be able to know him.

Today is Christmas Eve and I should be putting her new bike together. I don’t know how she could be seven-years-old already. It just doesn’t seem possible.

I wave to the bartender and motion for another beer. The smell of damp wool and old peanuts wafts from him as he sets a bottle down in front of me.

The bike could wait another hour.

 

*Fiction

Basic

Posted on December 23 2011 by J.W. Richmond

This time of year is tough, managing families
                                                   work
                                                   expectations.

The biggest difficulty is needing to say no.
But no is outside the range of allowable responses,
                                                         regardless of need.

Not need like want.
Or need like should.

But further down to basic essentials:
                                     breathable air
                                     fundamental life
                                     eyes that are able to focus
                                         on anything.

I do have a choice. Technically.

Do it.

Or.

Face huge
       direct
       adverse
       lifelong
       imbalanced consequences.

I could pull the card of a five-year-old and claim it’s not fair – which is actually strikingly accurate, but completely moot.

Or I could suck it up and
              cough
              choke
              drown
                   on the results.

Again.
And again.

Because attempts at conversation
                           understanding
                           consideration
                           resolution
                           compromise
                           wholesome conflict
                              are scoffed at
                                  tossed aside and ignored
                            or deemed unworthy to listen to in the first place.

So I keep gasping for any air I can get
                           and wait
                                   for the pressure to release – enough
                        that I can finally shift out of straight survival mode
                                       and breathe again.

Raw

Posted on December 17 2011 by J.W. Richmond

I have a lot written that I could post.
But I’m not convinced I should always put my feelings out there –
                                 as I feel them.

Some of the edges are raw, and not in a good way.

Other things aren’t finished.

As if anything ever really is…

Tonight, I think
            I need to pause
                        refine
                        reword
                        delete
                  and try again later.

First*

Posted on December 13 2011 by J.W. Richmond

She hardly looks up as she walks.

But she’s not unfriendly; she sneaks glances at the cars when they pass by, and when people wave to her, her small frame seems to grow almost two inches as she waves back.

Her little, yippy dog, Nahum, a white and brown terrier-of-some-sort, wears a cream-colored winter sweater this time of year, that she knitted herself. His name means comfort, and he’s almost like a mini-human, who has to be walked at certain intervals and fed some food-like substance that could make anyone gag.

But she loves him. He is the ground wire to her life now.

Her life used to be something so different. Then two years, three days and seven hours ago, her husband died from a heart attack. A cardiac arrest, the technician told her.

Those words replayed over and over in her mind, even after this long. It was so impersonal.

Heart attack wasn’t much better. But at least there was something more human about it, something that had some heart in it. She knew that was cheesy, but she didn’t care.

He had been her life, and she had no idea what to do after he was gone.

She was supposed to go first. That was their agreement. Or at least their secondary one. Their first was that that they would go together, so neither one would be forced to live without the other. They had absolutely agreed that she would not be the one left – without him.

But he had left her.

And she was alone.

All she had was their dog for comfort. Or something that slightly resembled comfort, at least in the daylight.

She walked Nahum around the neighborhood every day, taking the same route she used to walk – with him.

She didn’t know what she was supposed to do now. Or what she could do, even.

What she did know was that he had left her waiting. For him. For her life, or some version of it. For some way to make sense of the world.

Some way to figure out how to rely on God, a God who would do something like this to him. And to her.

 

*Fiction

Humility

Posted on December 6 2011 by J.W. Richmond

We went to a wedding reception recently and Jeff won a prize for knowing the couple really well.

We had never met the groom before that day, but it seems that Jeff is a good guesser.

The prize was one of the table centerpieces – a vase of flowers – and there were four chances to win. On each vase was a word, representing something the couple wanted, and they asked us to pray for those things for them:

Prosperity.
Wealth.
Fame.
Recognition.

The vase Jeff won said:

Humility.

This couple asked us to pray for humility for them every time we looked at the vase.

I love what they mean and I think I understand where they are coming from, but I find myself wanting more for them.

Because I know more about what they need, of course
                                      what they are worth, of course
                                      what they deserve.

But humility is what they asked for.

And I think they knew what they were doing. Humility is hard. What we think we deserve is easier.

Throughout this fall, I had silk flowers in the vase on a shelf. You could barely read the etching on the side, but we knew what it said, so it didn’t really matter if anyone else did, or if we saw the word every time.

When I started redecorating for Christmas, I remembered something another friend had done. She put string lights in a vase in the bathroom, and I loved it. She is amazing enough to have thought of it, but she may have found it in a magazine. Or on Pinterest.

I searched for a vase in our house and came across the one from our friend.

Humility.

How much more fitting for Christmas – and Christ – can you get?

Boots*

Posted on December 5 2011 by J.W. Richmond

I had met her many years earlier.

She didn’t like me then, and from what I could tell when she recognized me as I walked into the coffee shop on Fourth Street near the park, that hadn’t changed.

So many years ago, that drama had been about a boy. I think.

Erica never confronted me on it, just shot me looks from across the room, her dark brown eyes thin but focused, eyebrows pointing down in the center, her mouth coming to a slight pucker as she clenched her jaw shut. I never had a problem with her, until later. And even then, it wasn’t about her.

Mark had been with me then. As loosely as you could define with. He had issues with calling me his girlfriend or letting me call him my boyfriend. I just figured we were young and it was early for a commitment. And he said he wasn’t ready.

We were – something. Something real, but without an exact definition. I didn’t want us to be so loose, but I believed he was worth the wait.

He may have been, if he were willing to open up to me. But he wasn’t.

I found out later that he had a serious girlfriend before we met. He thought they were forever. And she killed herself.

I’m not sure how to describe my reaction when I heard that. I had no idea what to do, what to say. I had no breath left. Just empathy, compassion and some freaking out all smashed together. And a small click of why he thought he needed to keep me at a distance.

He had no warning and felt responsible; he was devastated and shut down. It was too hard to trust anyone else because he was afraid of them leaving him – again.

I would have clung to him and never let him go. No matter how he treated me. I would have made sure he could count on someone. Period.

But he never told me about her. Apparently he didn’t see me as someone he could talk to, someone he could trust or confide in. I had fallen so hard for him and he kept the biggest things in his life from me. He kept me at a distance when all I wanted was for him to let me in.

I never had the chance to show him how much I cared before he broke up with me, if that’s what you can call it when you aren’t really together in the first place.

I must have been blinded by my feelings, because I didn’t see what was right in front of me: I wasn’t what he wanted. I wasn’t who he wanted.

Even the words he used left me confused. Were we broken up? Were we still together? Because you can’t tell someone you are breaking up if you never acknowledged that you were together in the first place. We could still be friends though, he said. But something in his tone made me pretty sure it was over.

That became totally clear when Mark’s friend told me she had moved in. It had only been two weeks since our break-up. Or whatever term he wanted to use as a replacement.

Two weeks. And they were living together.

I had so many questions and I never fully found out the answers. How long had they been together? Were then together when he and I were together? Or whatever we were? I knew he hadn’t been ready to commit, but we were a we – an us. At the time, I would not have defined us as sort-of-ish anything. We just were.

But apparently I had just been the substitute girl, the for now girl. Other than a couple emails and a reluctant wave when he accidentally made eye contact with me across the quad, we never talked again.

Mark and Erica got married the following year.

Married.

So much for us being young, and him not being ready to commit. They eloped. In Vegas. So prosaic. And I guess weirdly romantic-ish.

Fast forward two years and they were divorced. Already.

I never knew the why behind that.

Seeing Erica now, I wasn’t sure what to say. We had never been friends and she clearly didn’t want to be friends now. So I just went with the basics: “Sure is cold out tonight, huh?”

She could have played it off that she didn’t know me, that we were strangers making awkward conversation. Or she could have just said, “Yup.”

But her face betrayed her. Recognition was displayed in those same eyes, same eyebrows, same puckered mouth.

She had won. And he still left.

She glared at me, her eyes getting even thinner than before. She looked toward her friend on her right and blew all the air out of her mouth in a short breath, in a quiet whoosh. Then she stood up, turned toward the door and walked away.

I wonder if she had been waiting for him to realize he missed her, that he made a mistake. So many years ago I had been wishing something similar, but I had nothing to base that wish on. I had been waiting for something once that would never come, and I moved on.

But he was her husband.

The door slammed closed behind her and the wreath with the red, yellow and orange leaves on it crashed and bounced against the glass as I watched her leave.

The pavement was wet from the rain a few hours before, and her footprints reflected on the sidewalk.

Almost-perfect, slightly blurry boot-marks imprinted in the melting water, like the memories of him that he left – for both of us.

 

*Fiction

Refocus

Posted on December 3 2011 by J.W. Richmond

It is barely December, but I’ve already been kind of a Scrooge this year.

Not because I don’t like Christmas
                              or family
                              or [fill-in-the-blank].

I just don’t feel it.

I’m ready for January to come so all of this will be over.

I think it’s because I feel like so much of it has been ruined.

The enjoyment I used to have this time of year has been replaced
                                 with obligations
                  from work and family and friends and
                  expected gifts that we must buy and
                  required – neverending – events on the calendar
                       that keep appearing as if from nowhere.

When am I allowed to say no?
Where is that option?

I still don’t have the answer.

Today I started decorating. Mostly habit. And maybe a smidgen of hope that it would help. Behavior modification, I know. Not a permanent solution.

I didn’t get very far.

My Achiever* – the part of me that just needs to get things done – was screaming at me to finish.

But my Persister* – the part of me that determines value – told me to stop.

For now.

Leave the boxes in the living room.
Leave things unfinished.
     For now.
Sit back. Refocus.

Regardless of the obligations
                             in front of me,
                                around me,
                                enveloping me,
                                     I need to refocus
                                          and reflect
                                               on the whole point of Christmas.

Even if the rest of December is packed with junk and people around me who pack my calendar with junk, and some good stuff here and there, there is one real reason why we celebrate.

Whether I feel it or not.

Because I am not the point.

He is.

 

 

*Your Unique Design: Originally Developed by Taibi Kahler; Adapted by Dr. Bob Maris and Dr. Jerry Richardson. Achiever: Responsible, logical, organized. Persister: Dedicated, observant, conscientious.

Ice

Posted on November 29 2011 by J.W. Richmond

I could crack the air in half
     if I could grab hold of it –
          a smooth line at the break,
          each piece a seamless fit.
The ice on the hard ground
     used to be a softer snow,
          but now it’s bitter, angry,
               absent of its white, original glow.
The rage expands in the black
     spreading across everything each night –
          grass, rocks, dirt and pavement –
     waiting for its prey in an unfair fight.
A sliver moon peeks through the thick, grey fog
     as the car slowly approaches the bend in the street –
          the brakes illusory as if painted.
It starts to spin where the tires and shiny black meet.
Sharp rocks to the left,
     a steep cliff into the abyss on the right,
          the front becomes the reverse.
All they see is darkness illuminated in their lights.
Screams break the murky quiet
     as the first tire catches the edge
     and the car grips the wind
          until plastic and metal combine in permanent marriage.
Inklings of light break through the clouds.
The ice starts to melt as it catches sight of the sun.
Streaks shine down on the street and twisted metal below.
The day has started – but the ice has won.

Proud*

Posted on November 24 2011 by J.W. Richmond

“Did you see that, Daddy?
See what I did?
Are you proud of me?”

She looks up at him as she says it, hoping for some response from him. Preferably a positive one. She watches him – longingly – and waits.

One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi. Three-Mississippi.

She practically trips as he drags her around the corner into another aisle because she is still looking up at him as they walk.

Depending on his response, this is a question she could keep asking for years. A question she may ask to everyone she comes into contact with.

Especially any boy she dates
                             or almost-dates
                             or eventually marries.

“Of course,” he says, without looking down at her.

Finally.

Succinct.
Non-specific.
Generic.
Late.
And prodded.

She bites her lip and looks down at the floor.

Even at age six, she isn’t sure she can trust the answer. The words he says don’t match the rest of his response.

And she notices.

But she doesn’t dwell on it. She immediately starts thinking of other things she can do to win him over and make him proud of her.

She just needs to hear him say it – for real. She just has to find something she can do that will be impressive enough for him. Big enough for him.

She can’t wait to hear him say how proud he is of her.

There has to be something she can do.

 

*Fiction.

Yogurt*

Posted on November 22 2011 by J.W. Richmond

She waits.

What else can she do?

Her husband grabs the soft, espresso-colored blanket from the back of the couch and spreads it out over her.

Inside, he’s terrified, but also strong. The strength isn’t false – or entirely for her. It comes from somewhere he isn’t even fully aware of.

The dog barks its little bark and jumps up on the blanket to curl up with her. She smiles a small smile, because she’s grateful for the distraction and the allowance to focus on something else. Even the constant licking doesn’t bother her tonight.

They had so many plans and so many dates set on the calendar. Now there are missed appointments, missed workdays, missed friends and big question marks. Thanksgiving is this week. A big family event will be hard for them to participate in, and that’s not what they had expected. Her birthday is next week and they aren’t sure how to celebrate that either.

She has been forced to slow down from her normally active life, her normal schedule and her normal way of doing everyday things. She has never liked to ask for anything – especially for help. She’s so used to doing things herself and making everything fit into the allotted time. And she is used to doing everything well.

He asks her if he can get her anything, and she gives him that same look she has given him for years, as she looks into his brown eyes while slightly biting her lip with that half smile. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out exactly what that meant. By the second time she gave it to him, he knew it meant frozen yogurt – the Nilla Wafer kind with chocolate chips on top.

He kisses her forehead as he brushes her blonde hair out of her face, holds her cheeks in his hands and looks into her gentle eyes. She puts her hands on his and they both inhale together.

The dog’s nose is wet as it rubs against their hands, trying to join in and be part of the interaction. It tickles her. She chuckles and lets go to pet the dog so it will stop.

She says goodbye and he tells her he loves her. She thanks him in advance for the yogurt, and he hands her the remote on his way out, just in case she feels like flipping through the channels while he is gone.

He grabs his keys, unlocks the door and heads out to the garage. He looks back one more time, tilts his head slightly to the left and nods his head a little as he looks at her.

She takes a deep breath and puts her hand over her heart as she watches him leave.

This night is just like the night before and the night before that.

He has been faithful and kind to her.

They both want to meet their little girl so badly, but it’s not that time yet. It’s just too early. All they really want right now is for their little girl to be healthy.

It hasn’t been the roughest pregnancy, but it certainly hasn’t been the easiest. They have had enough scares for their girl already and they don’t need any more.

She cups her hand across her belly through the blanket, and prays a quick prayer for protection and safety.

And they wait – patiently – for their little one to make her first appearance.
 

For Meghan, Matt and Ava.

 

*Fiction