Absolutely

TW: Illness and death

Age told my bones to rattle with every step nowadays. Time seems to catch us all off guard. My skin is thin enough that my bones remind me of wind chimes. I’m limping towards the park bench with maracas for legs. It made me think about how much I missed dancing. I’ll settle with sitting on a park bench for the time being.

Hydrangeas cover the wooden bench like a shawl of blush and lilac. Usually the sunlight would reflect gold off of the flowers. Autumn brought the breeze out to disappoint. It blew some clouds over the park. How odd seeing these images of beauty blanketed in grey.

There are no children in the park today. I thought surely with the weather, the more expressive ones would be out. I appreciate them now more than I did when I was younger. How wonderful to know yourself so young. Some die before they meet themselves. They meet themselves in various deaths and rebirths. These young ones are well acquainted with themselves.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?” A sing-song voice demurely asked. I looked up and saw a face that made my heart stop. She was around my age. She gave me the air of a high school sweetheart of yesteryear. My tongue caught in my throat. Thankfully, age saved me from embarrassment. She only thought I was hard of hearing.

“Is this seat taken?” She repeated, pointing to the barren space next to me that I secretly prayed to every God that she would occupy. “No-no, please go ahead,” I said, thanking my age for the time in forever. She took her seat beside me, letting out a wistful sigh. I was enveloped by the smell of roses and hope. She wore a magenta coat with black buttons. How impressed she was when we would reminisce about this moment. How could I have remembered this slight detail? Man has never forgotten their first steps on the moon. How could I ever forget this?

Knowing her now, I know why she sat in silence for as long as she did. I know she was wondering why I stared at her, mouth agape idiotically, her being too nice to say anything. It was hard for her to imagine someone staring at her in awe, in the way that it’s hard for women to comprehend the weight of their admiration they inspire. She told me later, how growing up, she was not looked up to for her beauty. Something I could never imagine. How did this beautiful creature walk the Earth, hundreds of parks and trails, and sit on hundreds of old park benches like this and not be stopped just to be looked at?

“It’s unfortunate that it’s cloudy today.” She looked at me, asking for permission to have a pleasant-maybe-brief conversation. My expression must have gone from utterly beguiled to pleasantly agreeable. I’d like to imagine then she decided that it could be a little longer than brief. She continued, “The sunlight usually reflects so beautifully off of these hydrangeas,” She turned her head towards the back of the bench, “such a nice blush.” she said, so quiet, it almost seemed like it was to herself. My expression surely veered back into the beguiled territory, which did not put her off. She looked into my eyes. “These flowers are my favorite.” In the thousands of years that passed in five seconds, the best response I can think of was, “Absolutely.”

We stared into each other's eyes for a thousand more years. A moment of synchronicity that told us that we were supposed to be in each other's lives forever. I gathered the courage to ask her the basic questions: “How often do you come to this park?” “Do you live nearby?” “How long have you lived there?” “Where are you from?” Despite how repetitive it felt to ask. It seemed as though we had known each other our whole lives. Almost like I could answer her questions for her and finish her sentences before she spoke them.

She told me that she came to the park every week, twice a week if her crochet club cancelled, which was, “a little too often for her liking.” She lived in the brick apartment that stood about a block away. How many times have I walked by without knowing such an important person was sitting inside? Five years, she’d lived there. It seemed to be the smart decision to downsize after all of her three children moved out.

Two strangers meeting in the park had startlingly similar backstories. We had both been born in New York, her in Albany, me in New York City. We were both children of divorce during a time when divorce was taboo. After our parents divorced, our fathers became a non-factor in our lives. In an effort to substitute for absent fathers, our mothers raised us strictly. Unfortunately, enough to make us abandon the ship after graduation. We’d both built lives in upstate New York. We’d both repeated the same cycle of our parents. She married the father of her children while she was young. An attractive neighbor she met when she moved into her first studio apartment that she could only afford if she shared it with three other people. She would end up replacing the three roommates with a neglectful husband and two children. Quartets of claustrophobia and resentment. I became enraged when she told me how he ‘begrudgingly married her’. Youth is wasted on the young and its curse is stupidity. Her having to beg him to marry her. How dare he not recognize this wonderful creature that graced his life.

As I grew to know her, I would know the children he left her to raise. The three of them would inherit the kind eyes of their mother, I was able to see them through the hesitancy of letting a stranger into their inner circle. They stayed protective of their mother, their sole parent. We would laugh about this in around two years. In the meantime, I had to prove to them that I cherished their mother like the prized jewel she was.

The small talk would lead to further casual questions such as, “Will you marry me?” which made her laugh. A sound I would think of when the doctor found a mass in my chest. “Well mister, I would need to know your name first wouldn’t I?” Strangely, I’d forgotten that small detail. She blushed when I stared at her for a split second too long. Eventually, I was able to choke out my name.

“That’s such a kind name. You seem like such a kind man. I’m not too sure I can marry you though.” She smiled. “I can wait.” I said, assuredly. That made her laugh. I went to pick out a ring about a week later. Something I would remind her during the first dance at our wedding. In the time it was taking me to win over her children, I was planning how I would propose. It would end up being on that same park bench. There needed to be no reservations on the part of her children. At the wedding, my best man would refer to the three of them as the judge, the jury and the executioner.

“Would you like to have dinner sometime?” I asked. She was still blushing from earlier. She nodded. So many years had passed by and in all my years my purpose was not found until my weak legs decided that I needed to sit on a park bench on a random day. Near the end, when I was laying in the hospital bed and we were told the mass was inoperable, she would give me the same kind smile and said, “Everything will be ok.” I smiled for the first time that day and responded, “Absolutely.”