Of All People, You?

Old Leaves Fall

I've never experienced anything like this in my life, so upon hearing this news I had to go about it logically or at least try too. I take each new experience as a learning session, even though I try to stray from new things; I had no choice in this case.

I didn't cry, I didn't move, I didn't speak.....all I did was stand dead-still in front of her.

She said sympathetically, "Logan, are you okay?" I didn't respond and just stood, frozen. Eventually Arllo came to my side and asked if I was alright while sealing a big hug around me and I nodded, then he went off to find Mary.

Her eyes were puffy and she looked so distraught and uneasy. She immediately grabbed onto him and cried into his shoulder....I could only imagine how she felt.

When I think about losing Arllo–whom I love–it makes me experience unbelievable pain; and I wasn't even going through the real horrific event happening to me—but Mary was. She was experiencing full blown grief.

I was experiencing it too because Bernie was my only other friend besides Arllo.

He connected with me and helped me through so many issues on so many levels of intensity and seriousness. I really bonded with that old man, I basically aided his whole living and took care of him, I helped him eat and put him to bed, and played matchmaker.

I let someone into my life in an attempt to open myself up and in return got a piece of my heart ripped out—an empty hole that would never be filled.

Sure enough I later got assigned another senior and became a friend to him; but he would never be able to replace Bernie. See, when people get another dog after their previous dog passes or if your husband died and you remarried later: they would never be able to replace the previous person in your heart before. There will always be a missing feeling in your soul; like a part of you has left along with them to the place beyond death that you can never fully retrieve. You want to believe that your all of yourself is still there, and some might try to fill that gaping hole they feel...but in the end the attempts are pointless and futile, for nothing can replace that special bond you had created with another's wandering soul.

So in my sudden exposer to death, I tried to ignore that emptiness inside me: by observing how others were working through their own grief. My biggest observations were at the wake and funeral held for Bernie.

On the day of the wake I dressed in appropriate black attire and met up with Arllo who walked me there. I entered the building into a room full of quietly chatting people, all dressed in the same attire as I.

Arllo had his arm locked in mine and refused to leave my side because "I was acting weird and he was worried about me", as he had said.

Around the sad room was a display of many pictures of Bernie throughout his years in life and donated flowers and gifts besides them. I slowly walked forward and gazed at the still pictures before me. Most of them were black and white, and of poor condition and quality—especially the ones from his younger years.

He seemed like such a happy cheerful child, and an active one too. In many of the photos were him doing sports like football, baseball, fishing, golf, swimming; or just being outside on the beach or at a park. It showed his teenage years, and pictures of him with his date on prom night, and it showed pictures of him and Mary when they were together later in college.

All these pictures made me feel as if I was walking right alongside this man through every triumph in his life, every fall, every bump, every hill, every story along the way. These moments in time each held a scrap of his history and let you see into his life and feel the adventures he'd been in and through. And yet, after college there were none documented, until his much older years in the nursing home. Then, I came across a photo with Bernie and I in it it. I looked at it confused.