Recalculating......

July 18, 2016

I shouldn''t be surprised by this, but it took a trip to Europe to help me reset myself.  I had already started down the road to entrepreneurship and getting back to my roots at my 'real' job before I left for Poland.  Being there reminded me of all the good things we should hold on to each and every day:  family, friends, companionship, history, enjoying the moment, living each day.  Europeans just seem to have it all figured out.  They walk and enjoy long dinners with those important to them.  They don't rush, hidden behind smart phones, from one thing to the next.  It really made me feel the 'teen angst' of America.  We are so young and bold and feel we can take on anything, which is not a bad thing, but it is the trap of youth.  One we all go through in order to move on into adulthood.  I remember driving my car with its leaky gas tank, just out of college, waving at all those trying to point it out to me, thinking that I was invincible.  I needed that to get to where I am today and as a country, we also need it, but it was so very nice to settle into the feeling of maturity that  exudes from every cobblestone and statue and wrought-iron fixture in cities that are centuries older than anything in the US.

So I reveled in every amazing detail of the buildings and the people and the food of Poland, soaking in the essence of what I wanted when I returned home.  I journaled and took photos of it all.  It was amazing!  

My challege now is how to keep the momentum going here at home.  I have begun marketing my new business venture and moved to part-time at work.  I have done some much needed purging and cleaning and dove into art projects for the art shows we do in the fall, but that was not quite enough , so I am dusting off this blog I set up but never did anything with and I am going to write everyday.  I have also decided that nearly everything I have written, at least those pieces I am willing to share, are also going to go into this blog.  I write for myself but every writer, to some degree, wants to share that with others.  Why else would they write?

So  what piece to share first?  I have many poems and short stories.  A novel, even!  But what first???  I have a short story, that is about a woman who loses her husband to cancer and decides to life the life they had talked about but never did.  


Lilly’s Promise
MPOTOCKI

A 25 year romance ends in a battle lost to cancer. 
In order for Lilly to continue on alone,
the voice of Mack tells the story of a simple carpenter and circus acrobat,
reminding Lilly of the amazing strength she has.







She left the hospital that warm spring morning, a widow.  Her husband was down in the morgue awaiting the after death process that would eventually get him to the funeral home where everyone would pass along their condolences and tears and hugs, all in an attempt to make her feel better.  None of it would help, but fortunately, she was numb so it couldn’t hurt.  The last minutes of her life with Max in it played over and over in her mind.  With her eyes open, it was merely audio.  When she closed her eyes, it was in high-def.  

Mack woke himself with a fit of coughing, complete with blood.  His eyes were so tired and his face was wan and thin and had the unique pallor of grey that those near death possess.  He tried to laugh it off, which was his way, but that just brought about another fit of coughing. 

“Try not to talk, Mack.”  “I can see what you want to say in your eyes.”  “They were always your most readable feature.” 

She tried to smile but felt it was forced and only a shadow of the smiles that had crossed her face over the years.  She opted to just hold her lips closed, hoping that it looked more natural.  Mack dozed in and out of consciousness, floating in a morphine haze.  The doctors told her that it wouldn’t be long now.   They had said their tearful good-byes a few days ago when Mack was a bit more coherent.  She knew she needed to let go but couldn’t.  Mack was so much to her and filled every part of her world that she had no idea what she would do or how she would go on without him.  At the same time, she didn’t want his last moments on earth a picture of her losing it and carrying on uncontrollably. 

His eyes fluttered and he drifted as close to her as he was capable of. 

“Tell me something you have never told me before about yourself, Lilly.” 

She thought for a moment and reached for her purse.  She pulled out a bottle of lotion, got off the bed and pulled the nearby chair to his side so he could more easily see her hand. 

“I’ve never shown this party trick to anyone.”  “You’ll be the only one who knows my secret.” 

She poured a capful of the lotion into her hand. 

“I, the amazing Lilly can make the continent of Africa appear in my hand.” 

As the lotion pooled into her palm, the outline of Africa appeared.  She looked up at Mack.  His smile bathed his face in a light so pure and soft, Lilly knew the end was here. 

“You have always been amazing.”  “I love you forever.”  “See you on the other side.” 
He closed his eyes and was gone.  Lilly was sure she felt his soul rise out and leave through her because she felt closer to Mack at that moment than she ever had.  Their entire 25 years together passed through her in a series of emotions and oddly enough, she felt at peace for that instant.  The moment passed and she stood, went to the bathroom, washed the lotion off her hand, went back to Mack’s side, kissed him one last time at the special place on his neck that he liked her to kiss him, said good-bye and walked out of the hospital.

Reaching her car, Lilly’s dam against the ocean of tears she had staved off for the past month or so broke as she opened the door.

“What am I going to do without you, Mack?” she sobbed, collapsing into the driver’s seat.

She tried to hold onto all the good and wonderful times Mack had given her, but that only made her cry more.  She started to pound the steering wheel giving anger an avenue of release, pushing the sadness into temporary retreat.   The heat of anger filled her every pore.  It wrapped itself into her, intertwined with the sadness and held her close.

“When did a ‘deathbed’ become ‘actively dying’?”  she screamed to no one.

God how she hated politicians and their eagerness to force everything in life into a prepackaged mold of political correctness.  Some things just shouldn’t be candy-coated.  They were hard and real and made you feel like crap and were supposed to so that you can walk away after it a tougher-skinned, stronger person; someone who has added the ‘Death Badge’ to your life scout sash for all to see and revere.  Lilly had just earned this badge but did not see any signs of being stronger at any point soon.  All she felt was a melange of anger, self pity, sadness and exhaustion.  She sat in her car for hours, screaming and sobbing and beating the car’s interior.  She collapsed and fell asleep as the softness of the day’s end fell upon the earth.

A strong and constant tapping on the window brought her out of a fitful slumber.

“Ma’am.”  “Ma’am, are you OK?”  “Can I help you?”  “Are you lost?”

Lilly sat up with a start.

“MACK!!”  “Where’s Mack?” she demanded from the security guard leaning into her car to find out if she was one of the many drunk or drugged-up junkies who found open and empty cars to crash in at this edge of the hospital’s parking lot.

“Who is Mack?”  “Was he with you?”

Sucking in a sob, she breathed out softly, “For 25 amazing years.”  “Thank you, officer, I’m fine.”

She nudged him out of the door, closed it and turned the key.  Nothing happened.

“Can I call someone for you, ma’am?” the guard asked.

Lilly tried the key once more and the engine roared to life as she pressed her foot down hard on the gas pedal.

“Thanks,” she said, dismissing him with a limp wave of her hand.

Lilly sped out of the parking lot, not having a clue where to go.  Everyplace she knew had the imprint of Mack on it.  She drove to the freeway and headed west.  She had to be somewhere that Mack had never been to so she could figure out what to do next.

It was early morning and she passed a convoy of trucks hauling a circus to and from nowhere in particular.  She passed the trucks with animals and those hauling the big top.  She hadn’t been to a circus since she was a child.  And never with Mack. 

Her seatbelt pushed against her morning bladder and she needed to pee.  Lilly took the next exit and found a diner/gas station.  She pulled in, went to the ladies room, peed and freshened up a bit.  She was a widow now, so had to look the part or something.  She remembered what Mack had told her when he had been diagnosed with lung cancer.

“Babe,”  he had said, holding her face in his hands.  “You are the strongest person I know and I want you to live a long happy life even if I can’t share it all with you.”  “Promise me you’ll try.”  “No widow in black shrinking from life.”  “I want you to get out there and follow your dreams.”  “Promise me, Lilly.”  “If you promise me that, I can make it through this, whatever happens.”

Of course she had promised him that.  She never could deny him anything.  He reminded her of this promise over and over while he fought against the cancer.  He would win for a bit, then loose and they both knew that he would eventually loose it all, leaving her to fulfill her promise.

Lilly wasn’t really hungry but the coffee smelled good, so she sat down and ordered coffee and toast, more out of habit than need.  Mack always had coffee and toast in the morning.  The only time he had other breakfast fares was when he had breakfast for lunch or supper.  What a strange, lovely man Mack was.

By the time the waitress brought her coffee and toast, Lilly was softly weeping.  She quickly wiped her face and tried to pretend everything was OK and the waitress took the cue not to pry.  Closing her eyes, she saw Mack across from her telling her about his day’s plans and what things needed doing.  She enjoyed the smell of coffee and the feeling of Mack nearby and sat there for an hour or so.  Lilly wasn’t in a hurry.  Hell, she had nowhere to go and nothing to do, but she was feeling out of place here as the locals streamed in for the start of their day.  She asked if she could prepay for gas along with her food, put in her $50 bucks of fuel and headed out to the open road again.

Her day was a roller coaster of emotions.  She’d hear a song on the radio that made her think of Mack.  Sometimes it was a happy memory and she would sing loudly along with the radio.  Some songs made her so sad that she felt like crashing her car into anything to stop thinking.

When she stopped for a Coke later that morning, she fumbled around in her purse for some change for the soda machine and dropped to the ground when she found an envelope with her name on it, penned in Mack’s scrawl.

She trembled so much that she nearly ripped the envelope in half as she tried to open it.    Lilly waited until she could quiet her body and tears.  She had no idea when Mack had placed this in her purse, but it had to have been within the last week when he had a few incredible days where had he not known he had late stage cancer, he would never have believed the doctors had they told him then.

    My Dearest Lilly,

    Once there was a simple carpenter’s apprentice who never thought he
    would be anything to anyone.  He was just a lone spirit in a world he didn’t
    quite understand.  One hot July, the circus rolled into town and needed
    the carpenter to work on some new projects before they moved on to
    their next town.  It was here that the apprentice saw a vision of what
    life was really about in the form of a young acrobat.  She was tall and
    lithe and had an energy he could feel whenever she was around.

    The projects required a few weeks of work and the young apprentice
     found himself hanging out as much as he could to watch the acrobat.  She
    noticed him too, so lingered whenever he was around.  Theirs was a
    silent romance as both were too young, shy and unsure of themselves.
    The day the circus left town was the day the apprentice found hope
    and a strength he did not know he possessed.  It drove him to go back
    to school, graduate, go on to college and become an engineer.  He never
    forgot his muse, the young, beautiful acrobat.  He went to every circus
    he could for years to find her, but life isn’t always a simple or straight path
    to where we are intended to go.

    Meeting you was like coming home.  When I had told you that, you laughed,
    not quite believing it, but it truly was.  I was that young carpenter’s
    apprentice and you, my lovely Lilly were that young acrobat.  We were
    destined to be together from the start of time and will find each other again
    in the next life and the next and the next.

Had Lilly not been sitting down, she would have fallen for sure.  In that moment, she was 15 again, remembering the summer she saw ‘him’ and to find out that Mack and ‘him’ were the same person knocked the breathe right out of her.  They had never spoken so didn’t know each other’s names or anything about each other, but their connection those few weeks that hot summer so long ago had stayed with Lilly.  He had made her realize that there was a rich and full life out there beyond the circus tents and she began to crave it.  This young silent boy had given her the drive to break free from the family business and strike out on her own in a world she yearned to know of.  She loved him for that and the ache in her already wounded soul grew deeper.  How would she go on alone?  She had let the letter fall to the ground and saw there was more on the backside.  Lilly stared at it for a long time before mustering up enough courage to pick it up and read on.

    We’ve already lived without each other before, so I know, sweet Lilly, that
    you can do so again now.  Especially knowing that we will find one another
    again.  We are two pieces of a whole and will always be one.  We found
    strength from one another to change our lives without being together.  Just
    imagine what you can now do with 25 years of together. 

    Lilly, be happy.  Enjoy life.  Know that I am here, waiting patiently for you.
   
    Yours forever,
    Mack

Taped to the back of the letter was a torn piece from an old circus flyer.  The images were yellowed and aged, but she knew the acrobat on the trapeze was her and her father was catching her.  She remembered the routine well.  Lilly laughed and wept for all the joy, happiness, wonderment and loss she saw in that photo.

“Mack, my dear, dear Mack, thank you for waiting to share this story with me until now.” 

Lilly got back in her car, drove home, took care of the funeral arrangements and all the stuff that the end of a life brings.  She sold the house and everything in it and became the photographer Mack always knew she could be.  Every photo she took was for Mack and the love for him shown in every one.  She spent the rest of her 87 years showing Mack the world, dreaming of the day when they would again be together.