Perhaps what I hate finding the most in the piles of things which are left from our life together, are the things which are obviously unfinished. The things that speak of plans we made, secret plots she'd kept to surprise me. The birthday present she bought me, still wrapped up, can't even bring myself to read the tag (handwritten). Train tickets already booked to Ho Chi Minh City for her birthday because I always forgot in May and came up with something in June. Letters she wrote, addressed to me and her sisters, tied in a bundle with string. Little things she'd picked up, saved, wrapped in tissue paper to take back for her friends. Unlabelled so I can't even figure out who they were meant for, whether they'd bring some comfort to the friend.
At their memorial service I only knew Lena's Mother...and that only from the hospital when it was already far too late. Surrounded by her friends, her photographs, her favourite flowers, their ashes. I didn't know what to say, who to talk to. Her sisters clung to me, only knew me from photographs and letters, heartbroken, had to be to wrap themselves around a man they'd never met. Lotus flowers in bowls of water. Her Mother, barely keeping herself together, much improved since she was silent, pale and fainting in my arms when I told her the news, still a shadow of the woman in my wife's locket. Her Father, stern, unpleasant lurch in my stomach when I realised she had his eyes. One of her sisters could have been her twin, caught her eye as I gripped the podium, white-knuckled, trying to shuffle my thoughts into a speech for these strangers. Unbearable, for a second she seemed to be listening to her own eulogy, attending her own memorial. Couldn't get my thoughts together, spent the night before in the bottom of a bourbon bottle staring at blank speech cards. How could I? How could she be gone? How could I be in this situation? Condensing my wife and daughter into a ten minute speech with their ashes barely five feet away. A serious photo of her, short hair, fresh-faced, pale - school graduation picture chosen by her Father. In the picture I chose she's tanned, older, smiling, wearing Khmer clothes, jewel-colours, hair braided long over her shoulder. As though we knew two different women.
At their memorial service I only knew Lena's Mother...and that only from the hospital when it was already far too late. Surrounded by her friends, her photographs, her favourite flowers, their ashes. I didn't know what to say, who to talk to. Her sisters clung to me, only knew me from photographs and letters, heartbroken, had to be to wrap themselves around a man they'd never met. Lotus flowers in bowls of water. Her Mother, barely keeping herself together, much improved since she was silent, pale and fainting in my arms when I told her the news, still a shadow of the woman in my wife's locket. Her Father, stern, unpleasant lurch in my stomach when I realised she had his eyes. One of her sisters could have been her twin, caught her eye as I gripped the podium, white-knuckled, trying to shuffle my thoughts into a speech for these strangers. Unbearable, for a second she seemed to be listening to her own eulogy, attending her own memorial. Couldn't get my thoughts together, spent the night before in the bottom of a bourbon bottle staring at blank speech cards. How could I? How could she be gone? How could I be in this situation? Condensing my wife and daughter into a ten minute speech with their ashes barely five feet away. A serious photo of her, short hair, fresh-faced, pale - school graduation picture chosen by her Father. In the picture I chose she's tanned, older, smiling, wearing Khmer clothes, jewel-colours, hair braided long over her shoulder. As though we knew two different women.
Told myself I wouldn't mention our daughter, that things were hard enough for everyone without going into the full, heart-rending details. A joke broke the ice finally, awkward silence and holding of collective breath until her Father guffawed, inappropriate, wonderful. About her disproportionate love for bacon, her: a Buddhist, vegetarian, non-smoker liked nothing more when hungover than a bacon sandwich and a cigarette.
It was surreal, standing in the middle of a crowded room, surrounded by her friends, family, people I'd never met who all knew my wife before I had a chance. Told me stories about her, hilarious, heart-breaking, delightful stories which sounded so much like her. And wanted stories in return; about our life, about Asia, about why I took her away from them. All of them trying to see me, to get a glimpse of the reason she left them all, went on holiday - promised she'd be back and then...extended the trip, extended the trip and in the end, never made it home. Got married, pregnant, family. I tried to tell stories, accessible ones about teaching and about her work with the children, funny stories about snakes and spiders the size of my hands and about showering in the rain. About working in the sahakhum, about tin huts and rat bites and cholera, about footbaths in disinfectant and funeral pyres. About Khmer weddings and karaoke and rice wine so strong your teeth burned. About the smell of incense and the taste of green tea, the burn of sriracha and the flicker of fireflies under safrole trees.
But none of those stories explain why she tore herself away from her friends and family. They don't and they never will because I don't know why she did. I'm glad, endlessly, unceasingly glad that she did, that she chose me over that throng of kind, welcoming people. But I couldn't answer their questions. I could see myself as they saw me and didn't resent them asking. Hard to read, taciturn, surly on a good day, scruffy, bearded, still lean and tanned and foreign-looking, young man with a cane and a heavy limp. I ask myself too. Asked her, she elbowed me in the ribs, rested her forehead against mine, so close all I could see were brown eyes and kissed me. I thought I knew, then, for a brief moment. But it slipped away, somewhere in the last one hundred and ten days it's just leached out of me along with a lot of other things, most of them comforting. Replacing them with snakes of self-loathing which save themselves for dreams then twist and turn, waking me with hot fresh shame, cold sweat and savage nausea.
It was surreal, standing in the middle of a crowded room, surrounded by her friends, family, people I'd never met who all knew my wife before I had a chance. Told me stories about her, hilarious, heart-breaking, delightful stories which sounded so much like her. And wanted stories in return; about our life, about Asia, about why I took her away from them. All of them trying to see me, to get a glimpse of the reason she left them all, went on holiday - promised she'd be back and then...extended the trip, extended the trip and in the end, never made it home. Got married, pregnant, family. I tried to tell stories, accessible ones about teaching and about her work with the children, funny stories about snakes and spiders the size of my hands and about showering in the rain. About working in the sahakhum, about tin huts and rat bites and cholera, about footbaths in disinfectant and funeral pyres. About Khmer weddings and karaoke and rice wine so strong your teeth burned. About the smell of incense and the taste of green tea, the burn of sriracha and the flicker of fireflies under safrole trees.
But none of those stories explain why she tore herself away from her friends and family. They don't and they never will because I don't know why she did. I'm glad, endlessly, unceasingly glad that she did, that she chose me over that throng of kind, welcoming people. But I couldn't answer their questions. I could see myself as they saw me and didn't resent them asking. Hard to read, taciturn, surly on a good day, scruffy, bearded, still lean and tanned and foreign-looking, young man with a cane and a heavy limp. I ask myself too. Asked her, she elbowed me in the ribs, rested her forehead against mine, so close all I could see were brown eyes and kissed me. I thought I knew, then, for a brief moment. But it slipped away, somewhere in the last one hundred and ten days it's just leached out of me along with a lot of other things, most of them comforting. Replacing them with snakes of self-loathing which save themselves for dreams then twist and turn, waking me with hot fresh shame, cold sweat and savage nausea.
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