Whiskey Memories

Leo stared at the drink in his hand, swishing the amber liquid around the glass. “Do you need another.” The bartender asked, wiping down a glass cup. Leo looked up to answer but froze. “I’m not sure.” He stammered out. The bartender nodded and placed the empty glass in front of him. “So, want to tell me your story?” they asked. Leo tapped his finger on the empty glass. “I don’t have much of a story.” He replied. The bartender shrugged and turned around to grab a bottle. “Whisky, just like your wife gave you for your anniversary.” He poured the amber liquid and pushed the glass closer to Leo. “She loved the local whiskey. She said it tasted like sunshine and heat, and aways made her think of the day we met.”

He smiled at the memory. The bartender asked. “How did you meet? Was it love at first sight.”

Leo laughed at that. “It was for me. I was 17 and stole my dad’s whiskey. I wanted to take it to a friend to share. I was a gangly teenager, all limbs with no coordination. I was running through a field and tripped of course. My wife was lying on the grass, staring at the clouds. Blonde hair spread out around her. I tripped over her and spilled the entire bottle on her dress.” Leo laughed remembering their first meeting. “She had on a blue floral dress, a sky blue with small white daisies. It was soaked; she wasn’t even mad. She smiled and she said ‘Well if you wanted a girl to share a drink all you had to do was ask.’ There she was lying on the grass covered in whiskey head to toe. So, I asked her out on a date.”

The bartender smiled and went back to wipe down more glasses. “Then you fell in love and got married.”

Leo nodded. “3 years later. She looked so perfect in the white dress. I promised her during our vows that I wouldn’t spill any more whiskey on any more dresses. It was a lie, I’m too clumsy and I definitely spilled more than just whiskey on her dresses. “The bartender nodded. “Like your daughter did with her sippy cups of milk.”

Leo laughed again, “She inherited my clumsiness.” He paused and watched the memories flash in his mind, his daughter being born, her first steps, her first day of school and finally when she handed him his grandson with a smile on her face.

“She’s so much like her mother.” Leo laughs and swirls his drink. “That is until she starts to move. Clumsy like a baby giraffe.”

“Then you lost her in the accident.” The bartender reminds him. Leo closes his eyes. The feel of the phone in his hand, the weight of his wife when they heard the news and she collapsed in his arms. The sound of screeching in his ears as his son-in-law told him the news crying so hard he could barely speak. Head on collision, she didn’t make it. “Worst day of my life.” Leo responds.

“Even worse then when you got the news about your wife?” the bartender asks. Leo remembers the doctor’s words. “6 months left with intensive treatments.” His wife was so frail next to him, he knew she was sick before the doctor ever tested her. Every day was a struggle to exist, and he could see the weight pushing down on her a little more each day until she barely had the strength to rise.

“Both days broke me. How can you compare the woman you love dying a slow death to the sudden loss of a child. One is like a ticking bomb, a countdown that you know you can’t escape and the other is being hit by a train. Sudden and painful but both will kill you all the same.”

“But you didn’t die from the news. You helped your son-in-law raise the baby boy. He grew up, went to college and fell in love. Didn’t he?” The bartender leans against the bar, bracing their hands against the dark wood. “And you said goodbye to your wife, when she lay in her bed. When she was ready to go.”

Leo nodded. His grandson grew up to be a doctor, he wanted to help people, make a difference. He wanted to save people like his grandmother. His wife lived past those 6 months. She held on to see him at graduation. She held on to everyday. On her final day she lay in bed, she asked for one last kiss. So, they lay in bed together and he held on to her until the end, brushing back her hair as they watched their wedding video. When she took her last breath, he kissed her forehead and cried.

“Bartender, tell me.” Leo asked, looking the bartender in the eyes. Their wings shifted behind them, a soft gray that brushed the edge of the bar. “Is this all there is? Recalling my memories, alone in a bar?”

The angel laughed. “No this is just the waiting area. It’s different for everyone. Some people see a lobby, some a train station, and others see a gate. This is just a waiting area for you to get used to the idea of death. Some time for you to reminisce about your life. The good and the bad. They both matter in the end. All the small choices changed your path and here you are. Every life matters, and I listen to everyone’s story, I see every life, all the choices that made you, you.”

“Will I see my family again?” Leo asks, swishing his drink nervously in his hands. The angel laughs. “Why don’t you ask your wife.” They point and Leo turns quickly. The whiskey in his hands spills all over the woman behind him. Suddenly he is 17 again, a gangly teenager, all limbs and no coordination. She stands there in the same dress she wore the first time he met her, floral pattern now soaked in whiskey. “Well, if you wanted a girl to share a drink all you had to do was ask.’”