A Rejoinder against navigating against the stars of Fate

I see a life together for us.

I see our children, three little boys, and a girl, that perfect little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, I see you doting on all of them, a teacher and a friend, and a great listener, and an even better playmate, doting on them as they grow, blissfully unaware of the world before they were ours.

I see you at the table, it’s breakfast time in spring, the sun is warm and smiling, crowding through the window. I’m so glad I got to be a morning person, to share these hours with you, I read the paper as you make plans, and I laugh at what you’ve just drawn, a goofy caricature of me on the next section ahead in the morning edition.

I follow behind you, as you lead me through the old streets of places you called home, sometimes for days, sometimes, for weeks, sometimes for months. I know these places too, through the glass and darkly, as I recall the way I felt when you told me of them. So long ago, you were here, so happy I am now, to also be here. I thank you for holding my hand during takeoff, I am grateful for your keeping my mind engaged with the crossword puzzles we share, crossing the Atlantic. Life got easier when I climbed my fears, I’m glad you were there waiting for me on the other side.

I see all of these things when I close my eyes, and just until the point where I wake up. All that I have seen, all that I see, are ghosts. Am I, too, your ghost? What will they say to me, those that abide fate beyond our days, that I ignored my dreams, will they cheer that I made them ghosts? Or will they continue to simply stand unmoved, as the endless march of days shamble by their perch over the world; so few of them, after all, are ours, commensurate with their concern.

Your dreams are another’s now, another chapter done, other palms have been won. There are no second chances in your heart, as there are no second chapters in American lives. I should know, I have seen each of these fortunes rise, those surging tides of joy and chance, only to be dragged out along the corals as the tide receded away, intent only on preparing for different days and distant shores. And still I persist in the surf, climbing back upon the beach, and then the stonewall, I drag myself up to your door, and it’s always in the darkness, not unlike my guilt, my shame. I knock, I plead that you should come out, and see me here, to tell you tales of the storms I have weathered, to make you proud of the seas I have crossed to be here with you now. But there is no answer, just the curtains drawn closed and the lamps turned low, and I realize that I am the ghost, I am the cautionary tale of lost love, and my story was never about the seas I crossed or the storms I survived, merely a warning to others about straying too far, a rejoinder against navigating against the stars of fate.

I saw a life together, now I see ghosts.