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"She had a smile I would accept as my last view of earth." -Wallace Stegner I've known very few smiles in my day that really set me at ease. Katherine had one of these. The only others i can think of off the top of my head are my father's and my ex-wife's. Of course, both of these people ended up letting me down, in the Grand sense... albeit not nearly as much as i let them down. I met Katie when she was a child... and so was i. A teenage boy thinks he knows everything until he falls in love. And then, if he's smart, he'll realize how little he really has a grasp on. Unfortunately, i wasn't a smart kid. I never realized how much Katie taught me until well after she had slipped through my - and everyone else's - fingers. Hindsight is a wonderful and embarrassing thing. There comes a time in every young man's life that he thinks he's met the person he's going to live out the rest of his tattered existence with. I'm glad i never thought this about Katie. These kind of thoughts complicate very simple times. And simple times are a breeding ground for what, in a clich�d sense, are the "times of our lives." There are moments i remember that could never be recreated on the most expensive sound stage or retold in the most beautiful John Donne-esque prose. They live only in my mind anymore... and i have no doubt i've idealized these moments beyond reproach. That doesn't change the fact, however, that they did happen. And the pedestal i have placed her on is patently my own citation. But again... in painting our memories we choose our own colors. I often wonder how different things might have been had i met Katie when we were both older, say when i was in college. Or even now - as the entrenched pessimist i am. I'm convinced Magic happens just as often when you're 30 as it does when you're 15. It's our receptiveness and our outlook that changes. A wry smile, a soft glance - experience tends to harden our perception of such things. The last time i saw Katie is a scene etched ever so vividly in my brain. I was uncomfortable and on edge and i lied convincingly to myself that it was my distaste for hospitals that was jangling my nerves. That Golden smile of hers belied the resignation i sensed in her beleaguered eyes. I knew it was just a matter of time before she finally succeeded in destroying herself. As i held her frail body in my arms before leaving, my mind raced. I thought about how much this lamb had changed in the five or so years since i had first met her. I held firm that i hadn't really changed much myself. If anything, i was still an idiot. I didn't shed a single tear at Katie's funeral. I feigned anger, even as i was carrying her casket across the cemetery lawn. There were many reasons for this, all equally absurd... the main being to shield against real emotions. The sadness. The pain. The guilt, that i should have done more to help her. The fear, in knowing that she was probably a stronger person than i would ever be. All these feelings came flowing back a few years later when i lost another close friend of mine. Goodbye is a bitch when there's no reply. It was a couple weeks later - when i visited the cemetery in some odd attempt to answer some unsettling questions that had arisen in my head - that i finally broke down. I sobbed and wept like a baby, like i never had before or since. It was more than a sense of loss... more profound. I realized then that i had lost a piece of myself... not a feeling, not a memory, but something that could never be replaced or repaired. It's been a decade since... and i'd be lying to say there isn't an ache that still permeates within my broken frame. Katie's death is one of the three hardest things i've ever had to go through in my measly little existence, maybe the hardest. Even still, i would not trade my short time knowing this resplendent beauty for anything. I abhor clich�s such as, "I consider myself richer for the experience," but sometimes the hoariest boots fit. At times it is Hate or Anger or Resentment, sometimes Sadness or Pain. Sometimes it's a Fear or Resentment or even Hopelessness, in other times a Pity or Disappointment. These are all fairly rash and harsh emotions, though. Love is an amazingly powerful elixir... and it destroys these ephemeral thoughts and emotions rather quickly. Katherine is a huge, unfulfillable hole in my being. Even still, she gave me more than nearly any other person i have ever known. A ravishing creature that taught me more - and gave me more - than i could ever repay her for. And even though i know full well of man's unexplainable need to deify those he's lost, it still does not bastardize the colors with which i choose to paint that frail waif's smile. That smile. That beautiful smile... |