Season 9, Week 2 entry...
"We miss you, Olivia."
-- written underneath a smiling little girl.
"Pray for all who are lost. We wait for you still."
-- printed above a handsome young man wearing a lacrosse jersey and holding a trophy high.
"I love you so much, my darlings."
-- a note attached to a photo of two infants dressed in identical Miss Piggy onesies.
Walking along the barrier wall at the parking lot edge, I made my way toward the old stone lookout tower that stood at the end of the wall. The pictures were affixed to the wall here and there, many with notes written across or around them. The closer I got to the tower, the more plentiful the pictures became. They never covered each other over, though, no matter how many of them there were -- earlier pictures were shown as clearly and fully as ones added a few days ago. There was an unspoken understanding between those who came here, a shared belief that no one's grief was greater than anyone else's.
Reaching the entrance to the tower, I angled my head up to look at the hastily-painted sign hanging above the archway.
~ The Missing Stair ~
A set of broad, stone steps led up through the archway to the interior of the tower. Inside, the afternoon breeze blew through the open window spaces, their glass long since broken away from the frames. The notes and photos were even more numerous, their edges rustling in the wind as it swirled around the staircase leading to the top of the tower. Thousands of faces looked out at him, an ocean of bright eyes and big smiles, the young and the old. Mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, parents, children lined the walls and stairway. So many, I thought. So many went missing that day.
I wasn't sure how the tower, with its winding narrow stairs and rickety railings, had become the focal point for those who had lost someone the day the earthquakes happened. Prior to the disaster, I couldn't have named 10 other people who even knew the old tower was there, tucked partway up the mountainside. Afterwards, though, as the lists of the missing grew longer and longer, people began to meet at the tower, to share news and swap information and post photographs. To ask and to listen.
"Have you seen my daughter? She was wearing a rainbow dress."
"We're searching in the northeast quadrant tonight, can you bring water?"
"My boy, he was 12 -- always wore that silly Iron Man mask everywhere, you know."
The number of pictures on the walls grew quickly after the disaster. At first, the pictures contained a lot of contact information -- people listing a variety of phone numbers, people who then went home to pray someone, anyone would call. Most heard only silence. As the days had stretched into weeks and beyond, the pictures more clearly became memorials, favorite images chosen to be displayed, embellished with ribbons or written notes or a flower.
I climbed to the top level of the tower, an area about twenty feet square and rimmed with short stone wall to protect anyone from walking off the edge. Someone had hauled up a couple of old wooden benches and placed them at the edges. Here, too, the pictures continued all around. Crossing to the north wall, my eyes scanned for one specific picture. There you are, baby girl, I thought as I found it. I sat down on the nearby bench. My daughter grinned out at me from the image, birthday cake clutched in her tiny fists, both hands thrust up in triumph. She'd turned two the week before the quakes. Her daycare had been right at the center of the worst of the quakes. The facility and surrounding buildings had been swallowed up by the earth until nothing remained; very few survivors had been found in that quadrant.
"What's her name?"
I turned towards the voice. A younger woman was motioning at my daughter's picture.
"Katie," I said.
"She's beautiful," the woman said. "Her eyes, they look just like yours."
"Ha, yeah," I said, smiling at the thought. "Her mother - that's her, there in the other picture to the left - her mother always says... always said the same thing." My smile faded away. Jenna had been at the daycare to pick up Katie that day.
The woman pointed to a photo of a small blond boy a few feet down from Katie. The boy was maybe four years old, riding a pony and waving at the camera. "That's Mattie there," she said as she sat next to me.
"His name's not... Mr. Nibbles?" I asked, looking closely at the picture. The woman laughed. "No, that was the pony. Mattie loved that pony."
"Katie loved ponies, too. I think children under the age of five are genetically hardwired to love ponies," I said. She nodded in agreement. Our voices trailed away, each wading through our memories. We sat in silence together for a while. As was usual at the Stair, it wasn't the awkward silence of strangers. Rather, it was the calm silence shared by those who had all too much in common.
After the quake, I'd taken one of our old cell phones (one with a garish yellow cover on it so I'd always know which one it was) and had a new number assigned to it. It was my dedicated line to provide to the charities and emergency services who dealt with recovering any survivors and identifying victims. It had rung several times in the first week, sending my heart into my throat each time, but had always been a case of mistaken identity. The calls had stopped entirely by the end of the third week. My anticipation had slowly been replaced with the cold weight of despair; I realized I hadn't even had the phone with me for a while now.
"Do you still think they could find him, your boy?" I asked the woman. "Do you think it's still possible?"
"I don't know," she said. "I mean, logically, I know so much time has passed, making it virtually impossible someone has survived in the wreckage this long. The number of things that would have to go right for that to happen, the amount of luck it would take? My brain says, no, it isn't going to happen. But then I'll find myself thinking, well, who knows? Perhaps he was swept away by one of the rain rivers, carried along to somewhere far away, and maybe he can't remember who he is or what his name is. I sometimes think, well of course someone who finds him will figure it out, they'll take him where they can identify him, and maybe he'll find his way home to me after all. I guess I do still think there's a chance, even now. That they'll find him. That they'll find... everyone." She took my hand, looking at the photos of Katie and Jenna and everyone else who looked out at us from the tower's walls.
"And even if that can't happen," she continued, "even if he really is... dead... then I simply have to believe there are still good things happening for him. That even though I can't help him anymore, I try to feel there is someone else who is there for him and taking care of him now. That wherever he is, he's happy. I make myself believe it, and it somehow makes me happy as well. I know that he'll wake up each day, the sun on his face and the breeze in his hair, and know nothing can ever hurt him again."
She stopped and looked out over the green treetops spread out beneath us, stretching across and down the slopes in an unending wave. I watched as the light wind ruffled the leaves, the bright sunshine giving them a faintly shimmering effect as if they were all moving things. Almost like they're dancing, I thought. I never noticed that before.
We sat in silence for a while longer, our hands still together. As afternoon crossed into evening, a few more people began to appear and we eventually stood to allow others to sit if they wished. An elderly woman thanked us, sitting down as her fingers were already tracing the edges of a worn photo. "Hello, dear heart," she whispered to the man.
Mattie's mom and I made our way back down the stairs and out to the parking lot. I motioned I'd driven here and asked if she needed a ride anywhere. She said no, that she was within walking distance of her home and the evening air would do her good. "Don't give up," she whispered to me as we shared a brief hug goodbye. "Katie, Jenna, Mattie, everyone. Don't give up on them." I could only nod back, the tears welling thick in my throat.
I drove home and parked the car in the garage. As I walked into the house, the landline rang. I moved on through to the kitchen and picked up the phone with a "Hey, Mom," without even a glance at the caller ID. My mother was the only person who still preferred to call the home line over my cell, and I also knew she got nervous if I didn't check in with her each evening. "Sorry I'm late calling you, Mom, I just got back to the house."
As we talked, I felt around in the drawer by the phone, searching for a specific object in its cluttered depths. Pens, stamps, paper clips, scissors, discarded grocery lists, a Marvin the Martian keychain, a refrigerator magnet -- all emerged but were tossed aside as I searched. Mom gave me the play by play of her and Dad's day, and I told her about the woman I'd met at the Stair. A-ha!, I thought as my hand found what I was looking for. There you are.
"I'm sorry, Mom, what'd you say? I was distracted for a second," I said as I set it in front of me.
"I asked you what her name was, the young woman that you met."
We hadn't exchanged names as we spoke, but I realized I still knew the answer to Mom's question. I looked at the old yellow cell phone on the counter, turned on and charging for the first time in weeks, and smiled.
"Hope," I said. "Her name was Hope."
This is my entry for the second week of Season 9 of therealljidol. The prompt this week was 'the missing stair'.
As always, thanks for reading. :)