Time present and time past
A story of loss and how it forces us to rediscover who we are
Gabriel woke slowly. He turned his head instinctively to the empty spot in the bed.
It was six months since his wife died and he wasn’t ready to stop looking for her face everywhere, half-hoping, half-expecting her to be there, just as she had been for 30 years.
Sometimes, if an especially poignant or vivid memory overwhelmed him he would sink back down, either to rehearse it more fully and completely in his mind’s eye, or close his eyes and wait for it to pass. This morning he was meeting his daughter for their weekly walk. He should get up.
He had moved Linda’s mirror round to his side the day after the funeral, without quite knowing what for. But the routine had settled into place, subtly, unconsciously.
Before he could get out of bed he felt compelled to scour his face intently, the sagging of the skin, the greying hair. He tried to take it all in, a kind of reverie on the effects of time’s passing, in an attempt to somehow better recall its path. This morning, lines from Eliott’s four quartets came to mind:
‘Time present and time past
are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.’
He tried to continue with the verse, but it flitted elusively from his consciousness in the way that memories do, as mysteriously as it had appeared.
Walking with his daughter he felt her squeeze his hand. Turning to give her a smile, he saw his wife in her face, in her shining eyes. It took his breath away.
“I still see her everywhere, you know.”
Yes, dad. Me too. I think that’s a good thing though, isn’t it?”
Yes, love, I think so too.”
Written for Microcosm inspired by the weekly prompt ‘Reflection’, with thanks to Zane Dickens.
