I saw a rainbow
Just after hearing the news.
It was confusing and uplifting at the same moment. Tears rolled down to touch the corners of a shaky smile.
We haven’t been close in a long while. Probably as far as we were close, once upon a time.
As I look from your husband’s message, up to the dark clouds, pierced through with a brilliant sun, and now framed with colour, I see a movie reel of memories as our girls grew up together: 18 months to 18 years and counting.
It’s here in this courtyard that you persuaded us to come back from foreign lands.
It is also this courtyard where things turned somehow sour, never to be the same again.
I’ve grieved us before, back then when I realised there was no return, when I can all-now but assume, you believed I betrayed you.
I said something that hurt you. And for that I’m sorry as I intentionally would never.
What it was, I will never know, and that is mine to bear.
I thought if you wanted to be in my life again and me in yours, you would come to me and we would talk…swear….cry, maybe, if we weren’t too proud…then laugh…then cry again but this time from relief and for time lost.
I started to hate the attempted reconciliation coffees and village get togethers. Each time the realisation that the crack was turning into a chasm.
We used to right all the wrongs in the world one red wine bottle at a time. You were my first and closest friend here in my new country and home.
You were my surrogate husband, helping me with school pickups as I started a business and Neil was away.
You hosted sleep overs, and days out, backyard BBQs and far-flung outdoor adventures at wherever we lived at the time. We took the days on, double teaming it all with our husbands, strolling calmly behind, shaking their heads in tandem.
To know that I was so far away from you to not know the important stuff: the passing of your father, and now your illness, pierces me.
And now I grieve you again. Acutely.
Words unspoken and never now to be divulged.
An understanding, maybe even a compromise that is now lost.
This rainbow….
Is it you?
So soon after your departure?
That in spirit, is it your sign that you see me hurting, confused, tormented, that I couldn’t be the confidant I once was and now you’re telling me it’s ok? Telling me to let it go with Nature’s language, one you hope I can decipher?
That you’re no longer upset with me, and that our friendship had a reason and a season?
Rest in peace, and out of pain, my good friend. I will continue to miss you, here with us all.
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