Unfinished Business

Free as a Bird

I felt a small tug on my long wavy hair as I sat in the large kitchen after a long day of doing nothing at the beach. We were at our family friend's house in California and I was as happy as a bluebird in spring. I looked over to see him sitting beside me at the breakfast table and gave him a small but confused smile as he continued to play with little strands of my hair. He reached over and fiddled with my fingers and I caught my breath, feeling my heart still and my fingers freeze.

A boy was finally trying to hold my hand for the first time in my young seventeen years, and I, in my supreme and eternal awkward glory, told him that my hand was mine and not his. He told me he would stop if I wanted, and I got up and excused myself for bed, practically running to the room I was staying in. 

Every time I saw him after that time, I avoided him, deliberately going out of my way to make sure our paths did not cross. I would say a polite "hello" and leave, not wanting to remain in the uncomfortable interaction that was sure to happen. I was a coward.

6 MONTHS LATER

He committed suicide. He didn't leave a note. He didn't say goodbye. He just left. He flew away and got to learn what the other side is like, never to come back to our lives. He flew away and won't come back after winter. I go through roller coasters and tycoons of emotions: envy, anger, sadness, bitterness, doubt. He makes me angry and yet he makes me sad. 

I didn't get to make things right with him. I didn't get to tell him how much I really didn't mind that he wanted to hold my hand. I knew that his suicide had little to do with me and that I was being ignorant and self-serving by thinking that I had anything to do with it anyway, but death does strange things to people. Death forgets about closure and goes straight to heartbreak and guilt, leaving you more uncertain and depressed than before. What do you do when the person who has unfinished business with you suddenly leaves too soon for you to tell them that you would have held their hand gladly in a couple more years? All you can do is wish you would have made things right, knowing there's nothing else you could realistically wish for that would make you happy.

I haven't visited his grave yet, but every time I think about it, I imagine a stone with cold snow on top, gray clouds covering the sky, and a sad image of a person standing over it with tears in her eyes. I know that's not how it is in reality. It's going to be sunny and warm when I visit, with flowers dotting the field that is rife with stones.