Her eyes were a love letter. Their sweet chocolate encapsulated everything that I loved about her. That passion that somehow never ceased. The hearth that was her heart and unbeknownst to me, could burn without kindling. The joy that radiated from her constantly, that ability to smile in the face of adversity. My love for her is infinite, irrational, immeasurable. My wife holds my heart in the palm of her hands, and I trust her with it more than I trust myself.
But ink fades. Paper is finite. Even memory is delible. I had to learn that the hard way.
Death is the most dreaded of evils and yet I sometimes wish she had been taken from me that way, rather than the brutality that is the death of memory. Nature's despotism is often overlooked. Its tyrannical rule over humanity is not spoken about enough. No one had warned me of the extent of its cruelty. We all know of the perpetuity of death, but to lose someone mentally and not physically is the harshest thing imposed upon humanity. To have to look into her soul through her eyes and not see myself there. The woman who I have loved for more years than I have loved myself does not know who I was. Who she was. Nature stole that from her.
It stole from her the memory of the moment our eyes first met, and love permeated the air. It was thick, heating my blood, rousing my heart from its slumber. It was new. Fifty-five years of love ripped from her recollection and for what? I always thought that our love transcended this world, but the capability of nature to just take it completely destroyed that notion. Every time I kissed her cheek and she recoiled I was ruthlessly reminded that to her I was a stranger.
But those good days, oh were they good. The days when I could yet again be soothed by the musicality of her laugher. When she remembered how just how excellent she was. The cruellest consequence of this curse is the fact that she can no longer remember just how amazing she is.
But I can.
The memory of her smile as she served the community is etched into my mind. Her hair defying gravity – stretching upwards towards God, the glasses perched on her nose and the leather jacket that came to be known as a symbol of the Black Panthers. When cops came and destroyed the food intended for the children the night before the first breakfast program in Chicago was supposed to open, I wanted to return violence with violence. To hurt them like they hurt us, but Nettie stopped me. She taught me that there was power in the tongue, and I love her more for it. Nettie gave her all to the party only to be villainised by the press and for her work to go uncredited by the organisation. Maybe the loss of memory is a blessing simply because she can no longer remember the pain.
But I can.
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