The Visitor

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The Visitor

The nurses say I am seeing things, that my aged eyes are playing tricks on me, but I have seen you; standing in the background, behind the faded yellow sofa in the group lounge, gazing at me with an expression I can't quite understand from beside the arborvitae in the garden.

I know it's you and not some other resident's grandchild. You look just as I knew you always would. Not quite like that lovely young man who they hired to play you, but close enough to make me wonder if one of their folk saw you once too. There is age in your face; years of wisdom, and though you have said nothing, I know you are waiting for something.

For what?

I laugh.

Sitting in quiet anticipation as my own children and grandchildren visit me, I want to tell them, warn them, but know that they would pat me on the head and think me in my dotage. They wouldn't believe me and I am almost afraid to form the hope into words, afraid it will scatter like a dream upon waking.

But I hope that is why you are here. I have seen you more clearly lately, and behind you there now seems a veil between the worlds. Others are with you, too, ladies I had known and loved long ago. They hold out their hands and nod, smiling, as if to say, 'The place is here and you belong in it. Come, sister, join us.'

But part of me is so afraid that all this is naught but the fancy of a fading mind. I have always loved you, from the first time I read your fateful words, and that love gave me as much joy as any tangible thing on earth. But I wonder if perhaps that love, eternally unanswerable, has at last broken the mind that dreamed of it for so long.

You are here again. Closer this time. I can see your face now. Beautiful. You do look sad for me, for my confusion, for the hope I am afraid to have. Hope. I smile, not caring what the nurse on duty will think. You needed someone to carry your hope once too, didn't you? The dawning of light in your eyes fills me with it and I at last let myself step off what has felt like a precipice. I do not fall. You hold me.

Now I know it is all waiting for me; the world we created with you. I trust you and take your hand. It is warm and strong in mine, just as I always dreamed it would be. I look up at you (yes! Up!) and you are phantom no more, but as real as I am. I start to look back over my shoulder, but you touch my cheek, checking the motion.

"No more sorrow," you say, "this is the time to reap what you have sown. You have kept my fire long in your heart and shared it unwavering with others. Come, take your place with me."

And with that you kiss me; a sweet, slow kiss that tastes of apples, ale and cinnamon, a million treasured dreams and the solace of longing answered and I know it will be as I always imagined it would. I laugh out loud, weeping for joy and throw my arms around your neck.

I hope my family does not cry for me. I am happy at last. Deliriously so.

~*~