The HK Visit - Butterflies

It was all about the butterflies.

By this I knew right away, or at least believed, the thought that she was not really here, and she could not be. But I wanted to, and I wanted to touch her, so I sat at the table.

"They are really nice, honey," she said, her voice rising on the last syllable in the way that told me she was pleased. She slid her pale, cool hand over to my forearm and looked me in the eyes.

And I smiled and thought, "Of course she likes them, because she is just in my head right now, and I have been collecting those butterfly pictures slowly and agonizingly for a week."

"I am glad you like them," I said. "Some of the best are too active to catch, and none of them seem to like to display when they rest."

She pulled them out of her purse, the brown one she always loved to carry and smiled, flipping through them. I walked around and stared at her face as she perused them. She sighed quietly.

"I love that you send these to me," she said. "I have every picture you've ever sent."

The Butterflies of Lamma - For Marcie

I thought to myself, "I have very few pictures of us together, I regret that so badly," and gulped, holding her hand.

"I know you regret it, honey," she said. "I know you do. But you don't need proof of anything. Everyone knows I love you and everyone knows you love me."

I fished around for my camera and she posed, smiling, then I set the camera on the dilapidated Coke refrigerator Mrs. Chan owned and set the timer. She smiled and bit her lower lip, then slid onto my lap.

I managed a smile, and as she turned and her big, blue, beautiful eyes sank into mine she became a blur, and tears burned down my cheeks.

"Why are you crying?" she asked. "Oh, honey. It's okay. It's okay..."

I thought, "I am crying because she is dead, she is not on Lamma, she is not even here in the dream with me. She is just a memory and a fantasy and I have not even printed a picture in a year."

She squeezed me against her chest and I felt and heard her heart beat against mine. She whispered, "If I am all those things and not me, aren't you grateful you have such a clear memory of me?"

I nodded and she kissed my nose. She wiped my tears with her thumbs and stoked my hair. "You're taking care of yourself," she said. "Thank you."

I shrugged.

She shook her head and sighed. "People lose the people who died before them because they become convinced that everything is just in their heads about their feelings of this whole hard, sad loss of that connection is real, and they think the dead can't feel or learn or change."

I looked up at her and they were all blue, then they opened and I sank into them again. I lost sight of all but those blue pools of unfathomable kindness and gentle love, and I knew that though she may not have been there at first, she was now.

I looked away, at Mrs. Chan and her peers, who now ignored us utterly, as opposed to the furtive, slightly annoyed glances they offered before.

"I love you," I said, the hot stng of tears on my face again.

"I know," she said. "You love me like I never left, because you know I never did. And I have felt it the whole time. Every thought of me, all your pains, your little offerings and your tears, I feel them all."

I nodded and sighed. "I know, sometimes they must be very sad."

"No, sweetie, no," she said, her cool skin against my face in her decolletage a sweet relief from the Honk Kong humidity. "You are so good to me, you don't even know."

I looked up and she smiled, but then looked concerned. "Don't throw me away, though, okay?" she asked.

I was confused and hurt all at once. I looked up at her and felt great weight.

"Don't disperse it all, not all of me," she said. "I love what you want to do for me. I love that I am here with you, that your love is so very strong. But don't let all of me go."

I nodded and croaked, "Okay."

"Letting me be free is not the same as letting go of me forever, and I don't want to let go of you, and I don't want you to let go of me," she said, holding my hand. "Keep a little of me close, sweetie, just a little."

And I was sure she was there now, so I asked, petulantly, sadly "Do you miss me?"

She gulped and sighed, "I can see you any time I want," she said. "I don't miss you. But I do know you miss me terribly, and I wish you could be with me as easily as I can be with you. But I am sometimes sad that you are in so much pain."

"I'll see you as often as I can," I said.

We stared out at a sunset over the ocean as the day closed, and I leaned against her as she sat in my lap.

As I woke, the heat of Lamma on my skin in the night was less where I felt she had been, and the absolute quiet slowly faded into the sounds of a less reverent night of a living island.

I knew she had been by and I was solemn for the moment. As I went to sleep again, Istarted awake at the sound of a voice.

I think it said, "I'm looking forward to the turtles."