A Day of Remembrance
My grandfather, Henry Fitzgerald Caney, was born on this day. He would have been seventy-two. More than a grandfather he was a good friend and someone I really admired. Of all of the people in my life, he has had the most notable influence. He demonstrated respect, trust, ethics and hard work.
Our physical heart, as we know, is a finite space divided into compartments. Our blood, our life energy, passes through these compartments for redistribution to those parts of us which are most important. Our emotional heart works similarly, although instead of predefined chambers we dynamically partition the space according to our passions, our dreams. Within this aether, my grandfather occupies a permanent space. Two years beyond his passing this space remains: the emotional equivalent to that bedroom of the deceased child which goes untouched, a moment frozen in time as a monument to a memory that we refuse to leave behind. It is something that I will never abandon.
Michelle, too, has earned such a space, as a testament to what was and what might have been. 夢. It is a collection not tainted by loss but rather a pedestal to all she has contributed to my life and to the seeds of hope and passion which she planted within me. Some will be fulfilled, others forgotten; the cumulative experience, though, is a treasure I will not take for granted. On occasion, like last night, she holds my hand, looks into my eyes and reenters that abandoned space. Dusts things off, gives remembrance to the dreams we shared. Things are different now and they will never be the same, but pass one night or twenty years and the core of what we constructed, the friendship, will be preserved.
But, as mentioned, the heart is a finite space. With each piece we give away the more we restrict the commodity of our compassion, our love. Some people measure their potential in money. Others in recognition, power, success. I measure potential through emotional equity.
One day, long from now, perhaps on this day, October the 24th, I will be sitting on my porch somewhere far away from the stresses and ignorance of my youth. I will look into my heart and I will wander from room to room.
I will first visit my inner child who lives on in a well lit room hovering over a pile of papers constantly taking in my experiences and transcribing them in scribbles of marker and strokes of watercolor. I will share a smile with him, a moment of paradoxical awareness and innocence, before he returns to his work, my work, my life in progress.
I will pass through a hall and gaze through a thick leaded window, to the back of my first love Cheryl, lost in a book and unaware of my presence. Then I will sit next to my grandfather, on a dock of a lake stocked by unidentified emotions, memories, forgotten experiences. We will sit there, not speaking, watching the water beetles tease the surface only broken by the occasional dream escaping the plasticity of the water to be pulled back down by the gravity of a life untold. Next I will visit Michelle’s garden, finding her distracted from her pruning by the discovery of a butterfly with brilliant pink wings, fluttering and enraptured passion. Somewhere in the foliage the rustling of Oscar Fitzgerald, envisioned through another's flesh, can be heard. I will see my late wife, now also confined to memory, and my children who have grown and moved on. My father and I will share a smile but again, no words will be spoken. Not here, not in this space of remembrance.
I will continue on through each chamber, taking an uncharted inventory of my life. I will encounter forgotten dreams, moments of passion, fragments of time trapped by the aching nostalgia of an old man’s heart.
And finally, after an undetermined passage of time, I will approach the exordium, the pinnacle of my heart’s museum, my life’s work all assembled for this very moment. There, in a small non-descript room, I will find myself sitting at a table in front of the clichéd symbol of life with only our two kings left. I will sit down opposite myself, not touching the board, and settle into a gaze with this frail apparition of my ego. Around my eyes the crow’s feet have deepened, my once hard chin slouched with age and gravity, wisps of white hair ornament my balding head, my hands still long but worn with age, wrinkled. My skin is dry and cracked, like paper, just as my grandfather’s was on the day of his death, a shroud to aching bones. My other self will try to speak but no words can be heard, just the raspy grate of air escaping soon expired passages. The lips settle in for a characteristic smirk and the eyes, pearls of youth untainted by the decay of my body will at last acknowledge this end.
And in those eyes I will find Narcissus’s pool, mesmerized by my reflection until all consciousness fades away and without a final gesture to disrupt the moment I embrace myself as death and know nothing more.
Our physical heart, as we know, is a finite space divided into compartments. Our blood, our life energy, passes through these compartments for redistribution to those parts of us which are most important. Our emotional heart works similarly, although instead of predefined chambers we dynamically partition the space according to our passions, our dreams. Within this aether, my grandfather occupies a permanent space. Two years beyond his passing this space remains: the emotional equivalent to that bedroom of the deceased child which goes untouched, a moment frozen in time as a monument to a memory that we refuse to leave behind. It is something that I will never abandon.
Michelle, too, has earned such a space, as a testament to what was and what might have been. 夢. It is a collection not tainted by loss but rather a pedestal to all she has contributed to my life and to the seeds of hope and passion which she planted within me. Some will be fulfilled, others forgotten; the cumulative experience, though, is a treasure I will not take for granted. On occasion, like last night, she holds my hand, looks into my eyes and reenters that abandoned space. Dusts things off, gives remembrance to the dreams we shared. Things are different now and they will never be the same, but pass one night or twenty years and the core of what we constructed, the friendship, will be preserved.
But, as mentioned, the heart is a finite space. With each piece we give away the more we restrict the commodity of our compassion, our love. Some people measure their potential in money. Others in recognition, power, success. I measure potential through emotional equity.
One day, long from now, perhaps on this day, October the 24th, I will be sitting on my porch somewhere far away from the stresses and ignorance of my youth. I will look into my heart and I will wander from room to room.
I will first visit my inner child who lives on in a well lit room hovering over a pile of papers constantly taking in my experiences and transcribing them in scribbles of marker and strokes of watercolor. I will share a smile with him, a moment of paradoxical awareness and innocence, before he returns to his work, my work, my life in progress.
I will pass through a hall and gaze through a thick leaded window, to the back of my first love Cheryl, lost in a book and unaware of my presence. Then I will sit next to my grandfather, on a dock of a lake stocked by unidentified emotions, memories, forgotten experiences. We will sit there, not speaking, watching the water beetles tease the surface only broken by the occasional dream escaping the plasticity of the water to be pulled back down by the gravity of a life untold. Next I will visit Michelle’s garden, finding her distracted from her pruning by the discovery of a butterfly with brilliant pink wings, fluttering and enraptured passion. Somewhere in the foliage the rustling of Oscar Fitzgerald, envisioned through another's flesh, can be heard. I will see my late wife, now also confined to memory, and my children who have grown and moved on. My father and I will share a smile but again, no words will be spoken. Not here, not in this space of remembrance.
I will continue on through each chamber, taking an uncharted inventory of my life. I will encounter forgotten dreams, moments of passion, fragments of time trapped by the aching nostalgia of an old man’s heart.
And finally, after an undetermined passage of time, I will approach the exordium, the pinnacle of my heart’s museum, my life’s work all assembled for this very moment. There, in a small non-descript room, I will find myself sitting at a table in front of the clichéd symbol of life with only our two kings left. I will sit down opposite myself, not touching the board, and settle into a gaze with this frail apparition of my ego. Around my eyes the crow’s feet have deepened, my once hard chin slouched with age and gravity, wisps of white hair ornament my balding head, my hands still long but worn with age, wrinkled. My skin is dry and cracked, like paper, just as my grandfather’s was on the day of his death, a shroud to aching bones. My other self will try to speak but no words can be heard, just the raspy grate of air escaping soon expired passages. The lips settle in for a characteristic smirk and the eyes, pearls of youth untainted by the decay of my body will at last acknowledge this end.
And in those eyes I will find Narcissus’s pool, mesmerized by my reflection until all consciousness fades away and without a final gesture to disrupt the moment I embrace myself as death and know nothing more.