I think I’m writing this for the both of us. Mimi’s too far gone now to even understand the world she’s living in, let alone the one that could embrace her after she draws that last breath.
Doctors diagnosed her two weeks after her 81st birthday. We didn’t need that diagnosis. Well, I didn’t, at least. I noticed the signs before we even stepped foot in a hospital.
It started with names at first. Calling our son by her father’s name, calling me by her brother’s, and vice versa. That kinda thing, you know?
When she started wandering around at night, though, that’s when I knew it was time to confront the inevitable. It was strange, though. Her wandering didn’t really feel like wandering. She was deliberately going to one specific location. The exact location where it happened.
I’d find her in our shed, staring down at the exact spot where the man had bled out, completely expressionless. I’d expect that even in her state she’d feel at least something, any sort of emotion whatsoever, but, unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case.
Maybe she didn’t need to feel anything. Maybe all she truly felt was drawn to a specific location where she knew something significant had happened.
That thought process changed after about the fifth time, however. I could see it in her face. She knew.
She knew that she had been violated. She knew that the violator faced no real justice for his crimes. And by the way she was looking at me, she knew that I wasn’t going to stand around and let that just happen.
When she spoke his name, I didn’t know if she was remembering what she had forgotten or if she was addressing me personally. All I knew was that she said it with such clarity that, for a split second, it sounded like she had been healed.
From that moment on, every doctor’s visit had me holding my breath with uncertainty. If she went off on a ramble about that night, I could hold her hand. Shed some tears and act like I was losing my sweet girl. But a separate part of me had a different way of thinking.
I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know if I wanted to live with the weight of what I had done anymore. I guess that’s why I’m writing this now.
I know that I don’t feel bad for what I did. How could I? Mimi was an angel. A light in a world full of darkness and hatred. And that man had taken away a part of that light. Changed her in a way that she never fully recovered from.
Even still, a life is a life, and I had taken one. I had acted as judge, jury, and executioner all while my wife watched. “It would help her move on,” she told me. “I need to see it.”
She never moved on. Even now. Even while she drifts away, there’s still a part of her that knows. And maybe this wouldn’t be so difficult if she didn’t continue calling me by his name. Reminding me every day of the person I’ve been trying to forget for nearly 50 years now.
Maybe this is all a sign. A sign for me to finally air out dirty laundry, I suppose. “Every tongue shall confess,” the Bible says. And I think that’s what I’m doing now.
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