A Symphony of Cicadas

Twenty-three



I spent the last few moments of my time on earth memorizing everything and everyone I ever loved in life, taking a full six months of human time to say my goodbyes before I was gone forever. I danced on the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge, running up the rusty orange rails toward the top of the towers and taking a long look at the expanse of the bay. I climbed into the trees on Telegraph Hill, letting the parrots that lived within the branches project their colorful thoughts back and forth from their head to mine and back again. I ran the bases at AT&T Park at the same time as Chewy Mendez, this year’s favorite San Francisco baseball player. I even pretended the crowd was cheering for me as we both rounded third base and slid into home. I visited old clients I adored, my son’s former third grade teacher, and the young gal who made my latte every morning at the coffee shop. Even my mailman received a momentary sojourn, a brief glimpse into his house while he served dinner to his family, just because I could.

I asked Aunt Rose to accompany me on all of these visits, in part so that I had someone with me on this side of the world, but also to keep me from changing my mind. These were my goodbyes. I wanted to make sure that I was clear on my intent, that nothing in this world altered my resolve to find peace in closure and leave it all behind. But I also wanted to make sure that I had one last memory of every part of the world I cherished, something I could hold onto once I had crossed over from this world to the next.

If Aunt Rose disagreed with what I was doing, she never let on. Instead, she hid in the corners of every place I visited, and melted into the shadows of every person I bid farewell. She didn’t speak to me, only offering comfort through her presence.

And I found the exercise cathartic. I started out easy, breezing through parts of my life that were once forgotten, coming to terms with loose ends and people who had slipped from my life. I checked in on old high school friends I had lost touch with, saw each of them in a different phase of life. Some had kids, some were divorced, and at least one of them made it big by becoming a rock star just as he swore he would in high school. I discovered my cat, who had escaped from our apartment a few months before my death, living in the apartment of Mrs. Rhodes down the hall. I laughed when he saw me, floating near him as a light in the air. And he knew it was me.

“Damn Mrs. Rhodes,” I laughed, remembering how she had seemed so concerned when I came to her door with a photo of him, swearing she hadn’t seen him but would keep her eye out for him. All that time, Pepper had been in her house. “Good for you, Pepper,” I told him, glad that he was at least well-loved in his new home even if he had betrayed me in his abandonment.

I traveled to Sebastopol to visit Sam in his mother’s town. I watched him as he moved with ease among his friends, an air of confidence unmistakable around him as he joked with those who looked up to him. He was different than I once knew him. We were so unfamiliar with each other in life, our defenses still strong as we became accustomed to living under the same roof. There was so much I didn’t know about him in life that I now knew about him in death. My regret with Sam was that I never got to experience the other side of being his stepmom, moving beyond our initial awkwardness to a place where we showed how much we cared. I sent him a silent farewell from my world to his, taking comfort from knowing he really had cared.

I visited Joey’s dad, Tony, exploring a part of my life I thought I’d never want to see again. My heart softened for him when I found him, living in a drug-induced stupor that seemed to be a permanent thing these days. He was the only one who lived in his home, the place trashed with beer cans and a sink full of dishes. The whole place smelled of old booze and cigarettes. He didn’t have much, but what he did have was worn out and old. However, one thing shone out among the piles of dirt and junk, and that was a photo of all three of us on his shelf. Tony had his arm around me in the picture, holding me up as I held Joey in my arms. My face was unsure, a hint of hope flushed in my cheeks. It was when Joey was only a few weeks old, when Tony had reappeared for just a moment to check in and see how we were doing, and, in an out-of-character move, hand me a wad of cash to help out with some expenses. He’d only stuck around for a few days, more than I had expected of him even then. I had forgotten about the photo until now, which he had asked a random guy on the street to take as if we were tourists instead of a local broken-up family. The moment was captured forever, now sitting on his bookshelf that held no books, us as a family for the last time in our lives with a backdrop of pork buns in a store window in Chinatown.

And next to the photo was our obituary.

The visit to my parents’ house in Sonoma was the one that worried me the most, and I begged Aunt Rose to stay close to ensure I wouldn’t fold. She nodded, holding my hand in silent support as we manifested to the home where I had grown up.

My mother was in the garden when I arrived, her hands deep in the dirt as she took advantage of the late afternoon sun. She was planting bulbs, a pile of them near her as she took her time digging six inch holes and placing a bulb in each one, covering them over with dirt and patting it down so they could sleep through the winter. Nearby, a Japanese maple I’d never seen before shone in red and gold. She glanced over at it when the last bulb was planted, offering a silent prayer.

“I miss you, sweet Rachel.”

It was all she said, but it spoke volumes. I understood that this was her way of keeping me close, that the tree was her offering to me and a beacon of hope for her. I had only visited her a handful of times in my death, but somehow she never looked as lovely or as young as she did in this moment. I memorized how the sun shone through her hair, casting a golden glow through the silver that now stood as the prominent hue. I traveled along her laugh lines, creases that made up an older version of my own face when I was human, and proof of a life filled with laughter. I captured the blue of her eyes, painting my dress the exact same shade so that I couldn’t forget the warmth of indigo that had smiled upon me at every stage of my life. I watched her hands as she worked, noticing the signs of age both in weathered skin and in age spots that hid among patches of dirt. I held onto Aunt Rose as I watched my mother’s hands, feeling cautious as I longed for the time when I was once cared for by those hands.

“It’s okay to feel,” Aunt Rose said, giving me permission in my goodbye to grieve. “I’ve got you.” And I cried as the memories of a really wonderful childhood flashed in front of me like slides to a moving picture show, scenes of my life passing me by. There was the time my father took Sara and me to the dump in his truck, all the windows rolled down and the radio turned up as we enjoyed being my father’s honorary sons for the day. There were all the times my mom rolled up her sleeves to teach us the art of baking bread, or how to outline the pictures we were coloring before filling them in with a lighter shade. The hills behind our house became the road of connection with our father, the hikes he took us on as teenagers serving as magical bridges when we couldn’t see eye to eye.

On this late afternoon, my father came out to join my mother, handing her a cup of ice water and inviting her to take a break. And the four of us stayed out there until the sun went down and cast a shadow over their bit of land in Sonoma. My father held my mom’s hand, a gesture I had taken for granted in all my years of life. I never took the time to notice how in love they were, even after years of marriage. I may have never been able to experience that kind of love in a marriage to John, but I got to be a part of it through my parents – two people who had served as an example of what a true partnership looked like.

The sky took on a purplish hue, the moon appearing over the ridge in magnified brilliance. It was why our hometown of Sonoma was referred to as the Valley of the Moon, the magical way the moon appeared larger than life when it first rose, before shrinking to a more demure orb. My parents stood up to go inside. But I stayed where I was, watching them walk away for the very last time. When they closed the door, Aunt Rose and I were already gone.

Sara’s house was a tornado of happiness - a naked Lily running to avoid bath time with a fit of giggles while Kevin and Sara worked to corner her, and Megan, in hysterics, who was doing her best to help her fleeing sister. When Kevin was able to capture the wriggling four-year-old, she squealed and twisted in his arms, not ready for the game to be over. To her delight and her parents’ dismay, it continued in a flurry of tidal waves and bubbles once she entered the bathtub. I left with this memory, the four of them as a family, only Sara and I aware that the number would grow by one more in nine months’ time. But I was the only one who knew that this one would be a boy.

I saved John for last. I wanted his to be the last human face I saw before I took off. It was only fitting that he was at the carnival in Santa Cruz with Sam. It seemed like ages since Jane and I were here, not just the two and a half years that had passed. I felt like I was a different person back then, amazed that the effects of time were still able to touch those of us in the afterlife.

Jane was there, and she ran to me, surrounded and followed by a storm of balloons.

“You’re doing it, aren’t you?” she accused me with a smile. “You’re leaving all this behind for something better. Am I right?”

“How did you know?”

“Honey, it couldn’t be clearer if you hired a plane to write it in the sky,” she laughed. “Yee! I’m so excited for you!” she squealed.

“You could come with me, you know,” I pointed out. She shrugged with a grin.

“Maybe one day. Hold me a seat when you get there. I’ll join you when I’m ready. But for now, I think I’m okay being right here in my own little Heaven.”

We sat together and people-watched. Or rather, Jane watched the random faces passing us by while I kept my eyes locked on John. I didn’t want to forget a thing. But there was something different about him, a lightness in his step and a permanent pull at the corner of his mouth. He and Sam looked more at ease than I’d ever seen them before, even in life. Sam held just a hint of being a boy, wisdom in his eyes from experience and growing up. And the two of them joked with each other, an easy camaraderie between them as they spent a silly evening at the carnival among the lights and balloons, men walking on stilts, and music enveloping the whole scene.

I saw her at the same time John did, a girl with strawberry blonde hair. She was sitting with friends several yards away from where he stood, and it was as if the crowd parted to create a path that led straight to her. She got up to leave with her friends, leaving her purse behind on the bench where she had been sitting.

“Hold on, I’ll be right back,” John said, rushing forward to grab the purse before someone else took off with it. “Miss!” he called out, and she turned. “You left this behind.” Her eyes widened when she saw her bag in his hands. She thanked him, taking the purse from his hand and brushing her fingers against his in the motion.

It was as if time turned sideways and broke open, spilling all the contents of the future out in front of me. Time skipped, and she was there in front of him, kissing him while dressed in white as they stood in front of all their friends and family. Time jumped again and it was Sam’s college graduation, the two of them cheering a few rows down from Wendy and her husband. Each jump brought them further along in life, the lines showing on their faces from years of laughter. I waited for the jealousy, the painful feelings that he had forgotten me in the eyes of another woman. But it never came. Instead I felt elation, the magnitude of happiness growing as they fell deeper in love. I experienced joy through their joy. I lived in the fast-forward of their lives until the final scene, John now an old man at the edge of her grave, smiling as he thanked her for a life well-lived. And then it all wound back up and we were at the carnival, music surrounding us as John handed her the purse.

“I’m John,” he said. She smiled at him then, letting her fingers remain on his just a little too long before pulling away.

“My name’s Hannah.”

John wouldn’t find out until after they were married that she worked for a month at a flower shop, filling in when the owner’s sister died.