come away, o child, to the waters and the wild for the world is more full of weeping than you can understand
One day, I might grow to understand that there is a lesson from everyone we meet in life. Perhaps that is something Vespera will teach me, or my father, or this kind stranger. The building blocks are there; the paving stones are set.
Everyone in our lives has a purpose; not, necessarily, in a utilitarian sort of way. But in this way. In the way that her compassion becomes a salve to my pain; in a way that I am met on this seaside not by loneliness but by companionship, simply because she had been here, and she had been the person I was meant to find. Maybe, maybe, my faith will call me to believe in destiny, or fate; if not my faith, then some inherent aversion towards apathy, or pessimism.
One day, I might look back at this encounter and recognize I met Nicnevin to make sense of my personal tragedy. One day, I might realize there are others who I meet who serve only to be bridges between one monumental point and the next; that will reteach me joy, or love, or even hate. There can only be so many extremes; so many pinnacles of both elation and pain.
This, however, is one of mine.
Well, sometimes they don’t want to leave, but they have to, and there is nothing they can do about it.
I nod; but even as I pretend understanding, tears well and spill from the corners of my eyes.
There is much that she says that doesn’t make sense to me, not yet. There is much that she says that will follow me from this time, from this place, into my life for years. Sometimes they are carrying too much. Sometimes the world becomes too heavy for them, and then they have to run.
The truths, brutal and unavoidable, continue to come. She delivers them as softly as possible; but the death of innocence is still the death of innocence. No matter how softly the killing, the too-white doves will fall from the sky.
And sometimes, love isn’t enough. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you love them, and it doesn’t matter how much they love you—sometimes people have to leave.
I can’t imagine it, I think—I cannot imagine it, leaving mother, leaving Hilde, running into the sea or beyond, becoming salt or sand, feeling as if the world was too much to bear—
(But then, briefly, I can: I remember the night I left the castle to run through the forest. I remember the times I have hidden in the garden, hoping no one would find me).
My eyes are raw. I bury them tighter into her shoulder. I curl my wings around myself and sob out a trembling, resolved breath.
But sometimes, sometimes they leave, and then they come back. Not all goodbyes are forever, no matter how permanent they seem at the time. Sometimes they leave, and they only leave for a moment. But even if they leave, even if they leave forever, no absence is permanent. You will find more people to love, to fill the spaces they leave behind.
I don’t think I will ever find someone else to love, as I loved my father. But her words remind me of the dream and in that too-soft, too-sad voice I say aloud, “I—I dream overnight the same dream.”
It seems an abrupt change of topic, even to myself. But the more I speak, the more it unfolds as a kind of rationalization, as a kind of acceptance. “In the dream, there’s a white stallion on a black beach. And we are walking together. He tells me we are the same person, separated by many lives—“
I laugh; the sound is self-deprecating, too sad, too bitter, to belong to a child. “I must sound crazy,” I say, self-consciously.
I withdraw from her; just a step away, to rub the tears from my eyes and glance out toward the open water. In that moment, I think I hate the sea—I hate it, for taking him.
Maybe, one day, I will understand better. Maybe, one day, I will remember this moment and recognize it as a turning point in life. But not right now. Not in this moment, when the sea breeze chills me to the bone, and I struggle to understand the concepts of loving and leaving and—most painfully of all—never saying goodbye.
“Thank you,” I say quietly, wonderingly. Because I want to believe her, more than anything, that if nothing else this is not the end.
Everyone in our lives has a purpose; not, necessarily, in a utilitarian sort of way. But in this way. In the way that her compassion becomes a salve to my pain; in a way that I am met on this seaside not by loneliness but by companionship, simply because she had been here, and she had been the person I was meant to find. Maybe, maybe, my faith will call me to believe in destiny, or fate; if not my faith, then some inherent aversion towards apathy, or pessimism.
One day, I might look back at this encounter and recognize I met Nicnevin to make sense of my personal tragedy. One day, I might realize there are others who I meet who serve only to be bridges between one monumental point and the next; that will reteach me joy, or love, or even hate. There can only be so many extremes; so many pinnacles of both elation and pain.
This, however, is one of mine.
Well, sometimes they don’t want to leave, but they have to, and there is nothing they can do about it.
I nod; but even as I pretend understanding, tears well and spill from the corners of my eyes.
There is much that she says that doesn’t make sense to me, not yet. There is much that she says that will follow me from this time, from this place, into my life for years. Sometimes they are carrying too much. Sometimes the world becomes too heavy for them, and then they have to run.
The truths, brutal and unavoidable, continue to come. She delivers them as softly as possible; but the death of innocence is still the death of innocence. No matter how softly the killing, the too-white doves will fall from the sky.
And sometimes, love isn’t enough. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you love them, and it doesn’t matter how much they love you—sometimes people have to leave.
I can’t imagine it, I think—I cannot imagine it, leaving mother, leaving Hilde, running into the sea or beyond, becoming salt or sand, feeling as if the world was too much to bear—
(But then, briefly, I can: I remember the night I left the castle to run through the forest. I remember the times I have hidden in the garden, hoping no one would find me).
My eyes are raw. I bury them tighter into her shoulder. I curl my wings around myself and sob out a trembling, resolved breath.
But sometimes, sometimes they leave, and then they come back. Not all goodbyes are forever, no matter how permanent they seem at the time. Sometimes they leave, and they only leave for a moment. But even if they leave, even if they leave forever, no absence is permanent. You will find more people to love, to fill the spaces they leave behind.
I don’t think I will ever find someone else to love, as I loved my father. But her words remind me of the dream and in that too-soft, too-sad voice I say aloud, “I—I dream overnight the same dream.”
It seems an abrupt change of topic, even to myself. But the more I speak, the more it unfolds as a kind of rationalization, as a kind of acceptance. “In the dream, there’s a white stallion on a black beach. And we are walking together. He tells me we are the same person, separated by many lives—“
I laugh; the sound is self-deprecating, too sad, too bitter, to belong to a child. “I must sound crazy,” I say, self-consciously.
I withdraw from her; just a step away, to rub the tears from my eyes and glance out toward the open water. In that moment, I think I hate the sea—I hate it, for taking him.
Maybe, one day, I will understand better. Maybe, one day, I will remember this moment and recognize it as a turning point in life. But not right now. Not in this moment, when the sea breeze chills me to the bone, and I struggle to understand the concepts of loving and leaving and—most painfully of all—never saying goodbye.
“Thank you,” I say quietly, wonderingly. Because I want to believe her, more than anything, that if nothing else this is not the end.
