You won't be able to understand unless I explain what really happened at the village annual picnic.  Was it just this morning?  Well, almost yesterday; it's nearing midnight.  It seems like days ago.  Everything has changed.

I almost didn't go to the picnic.  Ellen had nagged me, worried because I never go anywhere anymore, and I had resisted.  But this morning turned out to be a comparatively pain-free day and at the last minute I set out on the cliff path to join my neighbors.

As I stepped through the rock rose and beach lupines that decorated the promontory's curve, I got a good view of the festivities.  The picnic grounds were shaped like a seated lady -- the clubhouse perched as her head, a gentle slope down to a grassy lap filled with dancers and volley ball players, then a vertical down her skirts to the surf-ravaged rocks at ocean's edge.

The music was great, and I was walking quite well, and it seemed like this had been the right choice after all.  Many friends were arriving at the same time as I, and there were hugs and smiles.  Even the smell of the barbeque was okay; since I'd realized the futility of the chemotherapy and refused further torture, I hadn't been getting sick so often.

I turned away from the dancers, my eyes seeking the path back to my refuge. Then I froze.  Looking right at me was Teddy, my high school sweetheart.

He looked just the same.  But centered somehow, in a way he hadn't been when we were together.  He smiled.  That smile.  Oh, that smile.

He gathered me in and just held me, for centuries.  I knew I should never have been anywhere else.  I knew everything would have turned out differently if I'd just been here in his arms.

I had so many questions -- surely he did, too -- but we were too busy looking into one another to speak.  He kissed me softly, and for a long time.  The sweetness of it was so exquisite.  It flooded me.  It was almost like pain.

I couldn't now understand why we'd ever parted.  The old story:  he'd wanted to see the world, I'd wanted to stay in the village.  But that seemed a puny reason now, with the love washing over me anew, to have been apart.  He'd promised to come back for me, then he disappeared.  I'd bitterly decided he didn't really love me.  But it was so obvious now that he did.  It was in his eyes, his smile, his kiss, the curve of his neck, the ephemeral touch of his hands.

I knew I'd have to tell him I had no future.  But I wanted just a little more time with him.  I felt happy for the first time since he'd left, and I wanted a few more moments of that.  Maybe he felt the same, because he stood up and beckoned me to the dance ground.

I held open my arms and we whirled to the music like children.  I felt like I was flying, and couldn't remember ever being so free or so joyous.  More friends passed by, and they smiled at me with surprise.  Yes, no one's seen me like this for a very long time, I thought.

Eventually exhaustion won through, and I had to stop dancing.  To cover my weakness, I pretended I wanted to look out over the sea.  We moved slowly to the cliff's edge.  He stood beside me and I shivered with the pleasure of being near him.  He'd been smiling ever since he'd found me, but his smile faded now.  He stared expressionless at the waves, then down to the jutting rocks below.  Then looked at me, so serious.  I got the feeling he wanted to ask me a question, but he turned away and looked down at the rocks again.

"Hey!  Time for the awards ceremony!" Ellen shouted.

We turned and joined the crowds that were now starting up the trail toward the clubhouse at the top of the cliffs.  At first, we were just a trickle of people, but more and more left their dancing and their volleyball to join us, until we were crammed and packed together on the trail, doglegging up and up.

There was such a milling of bodies that I didn't notice at first when we got separated.  It jolted me when I realized I no longer knew where he was.  By now the crowds were so thick it was impossible to spot him, but still I scanned uphill and downhill along the trail of people.  For some reason I began to feel horrible and terribly anxious.  I scanned the trail more and more frantically.  When I saw Ben, one of the elders climbing past, I grabbed at him and asked if he'd seen Teddy.

Ben stared at me, stricken and confused.  His look baffled me so much that I stood paralyzed, and Ben was swept away by the throngs climbing past me.

I made my way to the top still without having spotted Teddy.  I hurried into the clubhouse so I could see whether he'd gotten there before me.  It was a huge room, with a small stage and numerous cocktail-style booths with tables, and scores of folding chairs stacked against the wall.  The band was setting up quietly in a corner, and the village elders prepared the stage and the sound system.  The booths were already jammed with early arrivers, and there was a distracting clamour as people unfolded chairs for themselves and staked out turf along the walls.

No Teddy.

I noticed Ellen with several of our friends at one of the booths and they saw me at the same time and did the impossible -- made room for me.  I squeezed in and caught my breath, realizing that they were all looking at me in the oddest way.

"Ellen, I can't find Teddy!" I said, almost in tears.

Ellen went still and gave me the same look Ben had given.  Finally, she spoke carefully to me, as one would with a lunatic.  "I don't understand. Teddy was killed six months ago.  We weren't going to tell you until you were feeling better.  So... what are you saying?"

Why was she saying such an awful thing to me?  Why?  The tears burst through and I railed at her.  I don't even remember what I said.

It was her quiet patience that shook me.  "Ellen, Ellen you saw us!  You smiled at us when we were dancing!"

"I saw you dancing, yes.  I was so pleased."

"Then you saw Teddy... you saw him!"

Another long pause, then Ellen said, "Sweetheart.  You were dancing alone."

From this point, it seems a blur, but I remember running from one cluster of friends to another, crying uncontrollably now, insisting that they'd seen me with Teddy, frightening and upsetting them, until Ellen finally escorted me home.

It was difficult to convince her to leave me, but I desperately needed to think this through.  When the sun finally set, I was still struggling to understand.

And as it grew dark, I thought I had found the answer.  He was there, I knew that, there was no question about that.  But no one else had seen him, so the impossible seemed to be true -- that he really had died.  So -- why had he come back?  Why had he come to me?  He hadn't appeared six months ago, when they say he died; why now?  And I knew.

My last days were a terrible choice.  I could spend all of them being ravaged by the "treatments" or I could spend them slowly getting sicker and frailer and breathe pain instead of air.

Or -- an excitement grew in me -- or I could join Teddy.  The way he'd looked so intently at the rocks.  I realized he'd been hoping I'd make the right decision.

Those of you who are reading this, I want so much for you to understand.  I've already said my goodbyes to you, in my heart, though you didn't know.  I will hear you, somewhere, when you say yours to me.

Know that I'll be happy. You're probably thinking I'm making a desperate choice. But the choice I'm making is a rapturous one. Teddy wouldn't have looked so joyful if he hadn't been in a wonderful place. And, more important, he wouldn't have wanted me with him unless he were sure that we'd be right together.

It's time for me to go now.  Back along the path.  The lupines are asleep for the night, but the night birds will guide me.  Teddy and I will be fine.

Lehua
©August, 2001