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It Seems You Left

It seems you left us on your wintery day. I can only sit here and wonder what kind of courage it takes. Is it courage or weariness? Is it wires crossed or having witnessed too many horrors in one short life? I don't know. Was it the shaking of your bed that bought you to your precipice? I just don't know...

But in my own very bones, I know you left.

If I had one more conversation with you it would only be to say goodbye. I wouldn't stop you, I'd just want to tell you how much you meant to me. How a warm glow emanated when you passed by. How I saw myself in you. How hard I tried to get you to see that life can move past war.

When I read the letters you wrote to your wife I am struck by your insight. You actually understood yourself! What didn't you understand? Of all the people one might wish to drop dead, you weren't one of them. Of all the people I have known I feel a tremendous loss. You lost but I lost too. Something about you felt familiar. You felt like a part of me. You are the person I might have been if hope hadn't stepped in. I had stories to tell you, now left untold. I imagined a trip I might take as an old lady, cane in one hand, as I alighted from a train, greeted by you after all these years. We would be presents to one another; each of us in the presence of a present. You would offer me tea and show me your garden --I would hand you a gift from afar. We would sit and talk, remembering when...Just yesterday I set aside a box to gather things in to to send to you when you arrived back home. Just yesterday I was still planning...

I'm glad you chose me to confide in. I'm thankful you gave me good things to ponder. I'm glad I cared about you. I know you cared about me. But I have tears in my eyes, Pavel and a very small part of me wishes to kill you myself; at least that way I'd keep you from doing the foolish. Everyone could blame me and remember you as the victim you were. Jesus Christ! Any one of your truth stories would have done most of us in. I'm surprised you made it as long as you did and that's what puzzles me now. You did all of the things one does to survive. You kept going. I have to wonder if surviving with kindness and vulnerability intact is a type of death sentence. I mean if you had survived by a hardening of the heart, you'd probably still be here, but what good would that have been? I just have this dark miserable notion of Russian life. I imagine the Dark Ages and no money or hope for anything but Vodka. I imagine all sorts of things. That documentary you sent of the children... All I saw was you. You wanted me to know. I know.

I know Dear One. I know. But I miss you.
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