The Bygones Wept

Dreams are frightful things. They often are senseless and confusing without ever being meaningless.  The glimpses of our souls that we take from them are like the images we see when looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. They are jumbled, fragmented, without context, but strikingly beautiful and intense. And at times, completely overwhelming.

There are secrets locked away within our minds. Truths we've long forgotten. Lies that we've repeated so many times that we don't remember where they began. Sometimes there are pains that have foundations so deep that they can't be seen for the mountains we've built over them. And yet, they're all there, slumbering quietly until a dream tethered by the last binding thread to an era long past wakes you into a sobbing fit of despair.

Some time ago, I learned that the first girl I ever deeply cared for had died of ovarian cancer. It was years after the fact that anyone I still knew learned of this, but my mom (in a persistent display of brain-mouth filter deficiency) made sure I was notified. As I hung up from that phone call, I told my wife what the purpose of the call was, to which she calmly inquired, "How do you feel about that?"

I know why she asked. She wanted to know if I still harbored any feelings for the girl. But in fact, it has been nigh on fifteen years since my last contact with her. Whatever feelings I had were long forgotten. She had carried on with her life and whatever I knew about it was the stuff of myth and legend. These days, all that I can find is an obituary that tells me that she remarried at least once and had a son. To a casual observer, it is a perfectly forgettable footnote that looks like all of the others on the flimsy newsprint of a small Illinois town.

There are very few days that stand out in my memory as holding watershed moments. The day I met her is one I remember in an unfortunate amount of detail. I was 14 years old and it was a Saturday in very early February. To say that I know the exact date would be accurate, but serves no purpose. I had returned home after staying the night at a friend's house the night before. As soon as I walked in the door, I dropped my things and started getting ready to go to my cousin's wedding that afternoon.

I always took a duffel bag for my things. My dad was due to head to Lincoln, Nebraska on Sunday and decided to use that same bag. Had I known, I'd have been more careful. In the bottom of that bag was a floor panel that provided support. Under that panel was a copy of the February 1978 issue of Playboy. I happened to be taking a shower when my bag was unpacked. My brother stepped in to apply a generous amount of Ralph Lauren's Polo. "Prepare yourself man," he said with brotherly understanding, "Dad opened your bag."

I stood there for several minutes wracked with terror about how I was going to explain it. I did eventually get out and make my mea culpas. And graciously, the issue died without much more discussion. Had there been much more, I'd have had to explain that I'd stolen it the night before from my friend's dad. Many a long conversation would have had to follow.

The wedding would provide enough distraction that very little was ever said about it again. And so, at a church of roughly 150 seats in Edwardsville, Illinois, I watched my cousin marry. At the reception, I would become reacquainted with a girl that I had not seen for a few years, and barely remembered. But that night was mine. We danced and talked all evening and became good friends. In the years that followed, we wrote many letters to each other, went to concerts, and sought each other out at mutual events. As often happens, the relationship was unbalanced and I was not on the receiving end.

There were times that I would sit and look at her graduation picture for hours. The letters that she sent were always kissed with a hint of perfume, and that scent lingered long after the letters stopped coming. One of the last was to tell me that she was seeing someone and that they intended to marry. The words "that probably disappoints you" leaped off the page at me like a gunshot. It was filled with recognition of my feelings, but also the assurance that those feelings would be fruitless. I didn't bother to write back that time.

I don't remember the feelings fading, or how long it took. I only know now that they once existed. But my life went on as they all do. I've had my trials and triumphs, and will continue to have more. I cannot recall the last time I went to bed thinking of her. Nor can I think of a time when I will close my eyes and think of her.

So to be roused from my sleep a few nights ago by a dream of her was both astonishing and troubling. The dream was clear enough to feel. We were in old haunts where we would sometimes cross paths. We spoke in the familiar way that we once did. And in a quiet moment, with teary eyes, I told her that I'd heard she was dead. She smiled sadly at me and touch my cheek. And all she said was, "I'm sorry."

I woke from my sleep to the sound of my own struggling sobs. I felt more broken in that moment than I had any right or reason to feel. It wasn't until then that I felt any particular sorrow about her death. And my mourning at that moment was not because of feelings that still persisted. No, my tears fell for my watershed moment that had lost half of its value. I would be lying if I said that I had not longed to see her again, or that given the opportunity I would take it now. But if I were to see her, I would not honestly be looking for a glimmer of the feelings that I once held for her to be suddenly returned.

I grieved for the once heady days when I learned what I wanted to feel for someone for the rest of my days. I grieved for the loss of a teacher that helped me to learn that losing my innocence was not to be feared. I grieved for a son and father that lost a wonderful woman. I grieved for a day and the catalyst it bore being a memory that only one person would now carry.

Those bygone days are long behind me, and the sorrow that belongs to those days shall remain in their stead, the signpost of days that were worth living.