Remember me?
The forgotten one with the penchant to help lost souls; even though I, myself am lost. They say that that which does not kill you only makes you stronger….or makes you mad enough with a vengeance to find that which tried to kill you in the first place.
Am I mad? Am I mad because I have tried so very hard to find that very thing…Death? Death is no stranger to me. He comes in the middle of the night to steal away the only ones that I have truly loved. My mother, my father, my precious, beautiful, princess Carrie. He stole them right from under my grasp.
Yes, I mourned for my mother and my father. But not nearly as deeply as I mourned for my Carrie. Some say circumstances change people, sometimes down to the very core. And I am not the same man that I was six months ago. Not the same gentle, kind, loving soul who would literally give the shirt from his very back to someone in need. No. I am much different now. More callous and cautious. Carrie’s death saw to that. I have now become what American folklore refers to as a “hermit”. Living in my ruins of ashes and dust. Venturing out every now and then to see what else this old world can do to me. Perchance waiting here in the ruins for my beloved Carrie to come home to me.
I still talk to her you know? Does that make me mad or crazy? To be able to talk to someone that you have loved and lost. Or are you the ones who are mad simply because you cannot see or hear her? And she answers me every time we talk. Oh, not in the normal way that you and I would converse, but on a level of the mind that most humans have forgotten is there…or have forgotten how to use it.
I still hear the water running in the tub in the evenings; the way it always has been when she bathed at night. Sometimes, I still see her sitting on the sofa on the front porch afterwards painting her toe nails or talking on the cell to her mother.
Maybe it’s just guilt. The guilt that it should have been me lying in that grave instead of her. Or maybe selfishness. That’s it! It’s selfishness. Selfish thoughts and questions. “Did she still love me even until the very end?” Did she blame me for what had happened, even though she and I both knew it was simply an accident?”
Somehow my mind and heart need these answers. But, then I talk to her. She never even gives the singlest of clues to me. She talks of all the good times we shared. About how much fun she had at Christmas time when her father paid for us to come to New Jersey to visit.
I don’t, in my heart of hearts believe that she ever blamed anyone for what had happened to her. But I do! Oh yes, I do! And each of you knows exactly who you are. The ones who defiled her in the past. The ones who made her think that she was less than perfect. The ones who only came around or talked to her when I wasn’t there and you wanted to offer her money for certain services of which you knew that she did not do.
How Carrie did loathe this. To be treated only as a piece of flesh to be drooled after. My Carrie knew that I loved her for her. I loved her for her pure child-like heart. For her inner as well as outer beauty. This always gave her a radiance and beauty that even the heavenly angels themselves stood in awe of.
