3/15/2014
3/15/2014
It was a quiet evening. The rain had stopped and the clouds cleared out. The sun was setting, and the shadows were getting darker. As I walked through the street, I felt a strange feeling of uncertainty. When I was young, my sister and I used to walk down this street to the town center every Sunday. We didn't accomplish much but just spending time with her gave me a sense of comfort and security. My sister has been dead for three years now. I was 16 when that car hit her. For some parts, I am still in denial. My mother refuses to talk about it, and my father can't bear to look at me because I remind him of my sister. She was two years older than me, and we had strikingly similar features. Hazel eyes, black straight, thick hair, wheatish complexion, and a baby round face with dimples on both sides to top it all off. People usually thought we were twins. And we went along with it. We had our sisterly "we hate each other" moments, but that never overshadowed the bond we shared.
She died three years ago on this day. 3/15/2014, the day of my sixteenth birthday. She went out late at night to pick up my present. She didn't come back home that night, and I never got my present from her. Every year this day, I come and stand on this bridge, and from a safe distance, stare at the spot where my sister was hit. I doubt I understand what my purpose of doing this every year is, but it definitely makes me think about the what ifs, the memories I had with her, and what would she be like now. As I leaned on the railings of the bridge, I could see how still the water below me was. The reflection of the sun setting was clear in the water, and the waves were carrying the sun away.
As I looked around the bridge one last time, ready to leave, I saw someone walking towards me. I could hardly make out his face but his pace was slow, and he was limping. I should've left, but I felt like staying around.
We both stood in silence for a while. The silence was a little comforting. At least I didn't feel I was alone and I hadn't felt that way for a long time. He kept staring at the water, and I wasn't sure if I should say something. But I got lost in my thoughts and didn't realize I was staring at him, for a long time.
"Do you want something?" He asked me still looking straight ahead.
He had a lean figure and was not very tall. His face was round and scruffy, and he had a red baseball cap on backward. I didn't see any cast on his leg; prompting me to wonder how he got his limp. He had a big nose and small eyes and was wearing just a T-shirt even though it was freezing that night.
"No, sorry I just don't see a lot of people out here on this bridge," I replied with as much patience as I could. I was curious about him, more than I realized.
"Do you come here often?"
"Just once every year on this date."
"How would you know who comes here if you don't yourself come here that much? But anyway, I come here almost everyday after work. I like watching the sunset from here."
"The sunset does look amazing from this bridge. I enjoy that too."
"So why don't you come here more frequently? Why just once every year?"
"To remind me that I need to move on but it's okay to appreciate what you had in the past once in awhile."
"Someone broke your heart here?"
"I wish. But someone definitely broke my life here. I have been trying to fix it ever since but how do you put broken glass back together?"
"You don't. You don't put it back together. Life is very generous, and we don't realize it until it fails us. Until it breaks us, we take it for granted. If it gave us everything that made us happy, it has every right to take it away from us. After that, it is up to us to decide what we want. We can either keep trying to fix something that can't be fixed or accept it and try to build something new."
"How is that fair to the people we leave behind? It's easier to say such things, but when tragedy strikes, it paralyzes every positive thought you ever had; It takes away the will of trying, and it leaves you stuck in the past like a limbo you can't get out of."
For the first time that night, he looked and me. He looked at my face briefly and then looked away again; he seemed a little rattled. He reached into his pockets and took out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. As he lit the cigarette, the fire of the lighter made me see his face properly for the first time. His eyes looked tired and his face worn out.
"Can I ask you something?" He said, his voice suddenly sounded more serious, and he seemed more interested.
"Yeah, why not," I said trying to be as discreet as possible.
"What do you think happens after a person dies?"
I was surprised. That was the last thing I expected to hear from this man. Not only didn't I have any idea as to why he asked me that, but I didn't know how to answer that question either; I didn't know how to say anything in that moment.
"I am sorry. Did I say something wrong?" He looked at me again, and I could see the concern on his face.
"No, I wasn't expecting this question, that's all." Sorry, but I don't know how to answer that question."
"Let me answer it for you then. After a person dies, they leave behind scars, they leave behind words unsaid, they leave behind their dreams, and they create this irreplaceable void in the hearts of the people who cared about them. Nights get a little colder, days get a bit longer, and every minute passes by without purpose for the ones who still live. Anything in this world doesn't happen easily. I don't know about you, but I have had a distressed life. I have been pushed to such limits that I have gotten numb. I have lost the strength to be brave enough to be afraid. I have done and seen things in life that should fill me with guilt and horror, but at the end of the day, here I am, at this bridge, enjoying this beautiful sunset, trying to wash my past away with these waves. I am not saying you need to forget about what happened; all I am saying is that life is tough, and if there is anything people should learn after someone they were close to dies, it's how precious and short life is. How it's not meant to be lived in the past or future but in the moment."
I was shivering, and I realized nights had gotten colder; colder than they ever used to be. Whenever I used to get cold at night, my sister used to put three extra blankets on me because she couldn't stand the noise of me shivering. At that moment I realized, how every second of my life is spent thinking about my sister. I believed that I come to this bridge to let myself once every year remember my sibling, but letting myself not think about her was subconsciously making me think about her even more. My sister’s death was such a mystery that there was never any conclusion to it. It was an open-ended unfinished story.
"Leaving the past behind is not easy for me because I will never get any closure. Maybe the guilt might have washed away if we got justice, if I could know who was responsible for my, my family’s misery. If the person who is at fault is held accountable for what they did, it makes leaving the past behind a little easier."
"So you are saying blaming someone else is how you can be happy after something goes wrong?" The man asked bewildered.
"No, that is not what I meant. But it'd be relieving to meet the person who ruined our lives and make him suffer the way we are suffering now."
"Revenge fantasies never pan the way you imagine them."
"This is more than a revenge fantasy. My life completely changed because of a mistake someone else made. I lost things I didn't know I had, to begin with, and he gets to live the rest of his life without knowing that? How is that fair!"
"Life doesn't have to be fair to you or to me or to anyone. We become a part of it; it doesn't become us. The day you stop seeing yourself as a victim, you will be able to accept your fate. Don't dream about life being the same again, dream about weaving a new life around your old memories. And as far as I can tell, that person does know what a mess he created. But you have to forgive him because if you don't, it won't affect him much but hurt you even more. Just breathe, you might remember how easy it is to live."
"You don't know that. You don't even know who this person is."
"Yes, I might not know him, but I know a little something about regrets. Every morning when I wake up, I leave my past behind because if I don't, I will be reminded that I don't deserve this new day. And each day it doesn't get any easier, but it makes tomorrow a little further and now a little real."
I looked down at my feet. I didn't have anything left to say to this man. Every word he said was true, but I didn't want to wake up from this nightmare, I just wanted to be crippled for as long as I needed to be. Although I couldn’t trace back how we started having this conversation. I told this stranger everything without telling him anything. It felt like I knew him and I could feel he knows my misery.
"Hey, are you okay?" He said breaking my chain of thoughts.
"I know I might have said too much when I don't even know your name. I don't know; I just felt I had to tell you this. I have been hiding in my own thoughts for a while, and the burden keeps getting heavier. Nothing I have is truly mine, and the weight of it all is drowning me; I am sinking a little every day. I have been living to justify that I am alive, but I was dead a long time ago. Here, take this, and don't hang on to only memories but every moment that passes you by. The times you take for granted are the times that make you smile years down the road out of nowhere." He said as he reached into his pocket and took out a necklace and handed it to me as he started to walk away.
I took the necklace and looked at it. It was a silver chain and had a big four clover leaf shaped pendant. I turned it around, and it had something carved into it. The carving read, "I give you all my luck, Happy Birthday. 3/15/2014."
As I looked up, that man was already gone.