Sleepless

I recently went home for a few days. I called my Grandmother prior to my visit and she told me the oddest story. She said that she was walking to her mailbox when a man got out of his car and approached her. She told me that he hugged her and called her Grandma. She didn’t recognize him and she asked him to identify himself. He said he was an old friend of my brother and me. Then she said the name. I promise you that he was never a friend of my brother. However, he was an old lover of mine. He didn’t live in that neighborhood anymore and the whole incident sort of bothered me.
The affair ended badly. I was only 17 when it started and it was rather scandalous considering the difference in our ages. Shouldn’t I have been in school instead of carrying on an affair? Well, I wasn’t in school. I graduated high school early, too early actually. I was smart and driven unfortunately, there was no money for college. I tried to work instead, but jobs for 17 year olds were not plentiful. I was offered and accepted a house-cleaning job, his house. He lived in my Grandmother’s neighborhood. Now the picture emerges. Why the men in my family didn’t try to kill him escapes me. After it started, we were very open about it. I guess my mother and the rest of the family knew how willful I was and they felt that any attempt to dissuade me might backfire. I was left, with a lot of grumbling from my mother and step dad, to learn a lesson on my own. I did, but it took, on and off, a couple of years. I put the incident with my Grandmother out of my mind.
A few weeks later, I’m at home for Mother’s Day and my Mom and I are chatting over coffee as she read the paper. She folded the paper down and peered over it giving me this funny look. Then folding the paper in half she said is this him, while showing me this man’s picture. It was his obituary. I took the paper from her and answered in the affirmative. I read it and thought God he was young. Cancer, I’m assuming was the cause, he smoked. No wife, no kids, and his devout Mother obviously had a great deal in input on the write up. There was a glaring typo which made me upset for a couple of reasons. One, at least your obituary should be free of errors and two, I was mad at myself for noticing the typo. I thought shouldn’t you be able to turn that off at a moment like this you callous bitch. The paper said that he had been ill for some time. Then I remembered him at my Grandmother’s mailbox. He knew he was dying. What was he doing, retracing his steps, thinking about me, trying to make amends, or simply reconciling his life? He died the day before I came home. Many thoughts ran through my mind. Should I stay an extra day and go to the funeral home, no, too many questions to answer there. Did I owe something to him or the past? Love is a weak, fleeting thing. I handed the paper back to my mother. Later she asked me if I was finished with it because she wanted to throw it out. There was that look again. What was I supposed to do, clip out the obit, laminate it, and use it as a bookmark. No Mom I’m finished with it. Now I’m not sleeping again, two, three days without much rest. I keep seeing his picture. It was really a good photograph of him. Obviously still handsome and a man women would sill want. I wonder who took it.