Okay, so I had a strike of inspiration when I went to church today and saw this old man in front of me. So here goes, don't puke!
XD
Rememberance. The brown wooden pews of the church looked as uncomfortable as each step he took as the bells overhead rang and jangled. The clock showed just slightly past six and already his bones ached; he felt as old as he looked –which was bad, since he was sixty and looked seventy.
He remembered a time when he skipped (well, he never skipped, being of rather ungainly stature) past the rows and rows of brown with flecks of white from the nails of children trapped in an hour of mass, making markings on its smooth chocolate surface.
How he remembered.
He remembered how she looked in her too short dress and her too long veil covering her too pretty face. Well, at least he had always thought she was pretty. Didn’t matter his half-brother ribbed him endlessly on her rather flat nose. Didn’t matter she had the hardest time finding a dress on her fifty-ringgit budget and had the height of a model but none of the gazelle-like proportions.
He remembered her face, all glowing and happy from finding a dress (didn’t matter it was on sale and was just four inches too short) and from marrying the man she loved. He remembered how he walked down the aisle (was it an aisle, or was it just a walkway of sorts?) and had his heart in his second-hand shoes and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth from the nerves, and waited at the altar for her turn to walk. He recalled every face in the church, looking at him suspiciously, as if he were about to bolt and leave her at the altar, weeping. Did not help one bit the church comprised that day of almost all her relatives, and very few of his. She had a big family, and she was, for her awkward and oddly lovable ways, the favourite.
He remembered how she had said yes, how she looked at him with her heart in her eyes and her brain left behind at the restaurant where he proposed to her. How she had in her head pictures of the life they will have together.
He knew too, and could never forget, how he had only ten ringgit in his wallet and a desperate hope that the angpau he would receive would pay for dinner that night. How he sweated in his cheap borrowed suit and wished he could take her away and ask her if she were sure.
He remembered too, feeling happier than he had ever had before when she said ‘I do’ and he shyly kissed her.
This church held memories, good ones and bad.
When a bawling babe came into the story, he recalled how his screaming, red-faced boy fussed marvelously at being held by a strange man in flowing robes and getting his forehead marked with holy oil. How she –wonderful, beautiful she – had laughed and apologized to the priest. How she –patient, loving she – had picked up the squirming baby and crooned him to silence.
He remembered sitting on the front row, beaming as his son went up to the altar to receive his first communion. He remembered the bench being particularly hard during the elaborate two-hour mass. He saw her, looking slightly green from her morning sickness and the growing child inside her. How he had hoped that he will have daughter!
He had the image of his boy, strong and tall for his age (lord knows where he got his long, gangly frame and sharp nose from, but it certainly wasn’t from him, maybe his father, the child’s grandfather?) and going off to school, where he would come back with a swollen eye from time to time from brawling with other boys who teased him about his mother, who, after 2 children, had a plump figure that spoke of warm, soft motherly hugs but no slinky red dresses. He had defended the love of his life fiercely, and there was no way a father could punish a son for that.
He saw his daughter wear a skirt that came with silly pink ribbons and lacy frills and a silky white top with rather ridiculous sleeves. He saw her face, so bright with pride at the acquirement of the latest in fashion. He saw her –his love, his life –smile indulgently even as she worried about paying for that little scrap of joy.
He remembered the arguments in the night, the tense words when things were tight and his son needed a car. He knew every frown on her face and the wrinkles they caused as his daughter needed a laptop. He knew too the crinkles at the sides of her eyes as she laughed whenever he had sidled up to her and nuzzled her neck in apology. She would giggle like the girl she was, and swat him away playfully. How he remembered her! How he missed her!
She had so often held him that even his hair felt cold and empty without her warmth. How he remembered her pale face as she fell sick! She had coughed and coughed and every sound that came from her throat was like a knife to his bowels (and he already had bowel problems). She had been flushed at times, pale as death at others. He begged her to tell him what was wrong but she had merely patted his cheeks and told him not to worry.
He remembered his frustration; he remembered his anger at her refusal, once again, over and over again, to share her pain with him. He remembered his rage at God, he remembered his grief when she smiled at him and his children and told them to go, get on with their lives.
He remembered shouting at her, gripping her feeble body and demanding that she stay, that she stay and get better and tell him once and for all, what he could do.
He remembered too, how she had cried and kissed his hot lips, and said, no, no, no. How he, when her eyes finally closed, cried of grief that his children could not stem, no matter what they did.
He sat on a bench at the back and he looked hard and long at the altar with it’s marble floors and cheerful flowers. He saw the sun glint off the crucifix. He remembered how she had always said she had felt something that day when they received the blessings together as man and wife; how she had felt that she knew that he would love her till the end and way beyond.
He remembered, oh, so many things. And as he laid down his walking stick and knelt at the cushioned pews, he remembered to say just one more little prayer. A prayer that she would love him still as he did, even though now he is bald and his teeth have gone and his knees are done in.
He remembered, and when his prayer was done, he closed his eyes, and with a sigh, he went to her.
