Hope From Another

He wore a pristine black suit. It was perfectly tailored to his physique. White shirt, pressed, starched, not a wrinkle in sight. Blue tie, bright, but not flamboyant, and subtlety cascading into the colors of the rich black jacket. Flawless, it was spectacular. He had spent the entire previous night shinning the shoes until they glossed a perfect reflection. Sitting in the hotel room he had lost himself in the memories as he blankly stared at those shoes, eloquent executive wingtips. And he had polished, and polished. Clean the dust off, dry, shine, oil, shine, oil, shine. Rhythmic work, repeatable work. His memories took him to his previous years, in the arms of his young bride, his lover.

He stood knee deep in the ocean. Holding the ashes in his hands. He didn’t want to release them, perhaps he couldn’t release them. He had tipped the urn and as the ashes caught the wind they immediately started flying out over the ocean. That is what he wanted, right? That is why he had come? But as the urn was emptying his hands moved with a reflex and captured a portion of the urn’s contents. Now he stood, with a light dusting of ashes over his previous pristine ensemble—with hands full of ashes. He couldn’t bring himself to open his hands, he was simply unable to let her go. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what he could do—so he stood there. Hands clasped in a death grip, terrified the ash would escape. They slowly were, slipping between his fingers and dancing in the wind as another gust brought another puff from his grip.

It couldn’t end like this.

***

He was drunk in the bar again. He was unable to stand. The waitress had tucked him into a corner booth out of the way from other guests. She grabbed his wallet and ordered a pizza for delivery to the bar. She had hoped the food would sober him up. He sat there, in the back of the bar, waiting for the food to arrive. It had been two years, two miserable years of jumping from one bar to the next. Desperately trying to forget, yet nothing he did allowed him to forget.

It had been easier when he first started drinking. The alcohol had allowed him to forget, to set aside the memories. But now, after two years of indulging in the toxic drink, it didn’t take away the memories, it just made incapacitated. It was terrible, debilitating, crippling. To be trapped in the situation where he longed for the substance, but the substance didn’t give any of the promised rewards. Trapped was the word, he felt completely trapped.

He eventually sobered up, enough to stupor out of the bar. The rideshare picked him up and dropped him off at his house. The place was empty, it had been entirely empty for two years. He stumbled up the steps and spent multiple minutes trying to get the door open before collapsing on the stoop. He wondered if it was worth going on. He silently staring at the blackness of the night. Brooding, he sat there in the cool dusk of the evening, wondering if he could continue like this. His soul felt so empty, completely devoid of life, of hope.

In the crisp night air, he finally sobered up a little more, just enough to find his keys and get the door unlocked. He stumbled to the couch and collapsed, drifting off to sleep, still feeling the ache within his soul. Still wondering if he could find the courage to end it.

***

He and Lilly were in a deep discussion on where they should go on vacation that year. They had made a tradition early in their marriage that they would always go on one international trip every year. After five years they had kept the tradition alive. The were planning this year’s trip and the options and discussion was delving into long held bucket-lists. They weren’t arguing, but they both brought their best players to the field, and they were swinging for all it was worth. He had a lifelong desire to go to Rome, and they finally had the financial means to make the trip. Lilly had spent years dreaming of going to Machu Picchu, she couldn’t imagine a better trip than hiking the trails up to the forbidden city.

Eventually the discussion had to be put on hold because they had to make it to their dinner event. They were meeting her brother and his wife for dinner. They all appreciated each other’s company, so it was a monthly occurrence (at least) that all four of them richly enjoyed. Perhaps it was strange for all four of them to get along as well as they did, but it didn’t change the fact that it happened.

They jumped into his slightly worse-for-wear four-door sedan and pulled away from their modest suburban home. They hadn’t done bad for themselves, but they chose carefully where to spend their money and it had never landed on vehicles. The car drove alright, even if it wasn’t that stylish. They were leaving their section of town and hit the section of open road, a small five mile stretch that separated the two towns.

The other car abruptly merged into their lane, as they were complacently discussing Amber’s new baby. It happened so fast there wasn’t time to react. The merging car clipped the rear of their sedan and spun them directly towards the edge of the road. He tried to correct course, but it didn’t do any good, they flew toward the ditch. The ditch’s incline and pitch of the sedan swung the car into cartwheels, flipping over and over. That’s when he stopped remembering.

The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital, with every gadget and gauge attached to every part of him. It took him quite sometime to regroup his memories and surroundings. But when he finally came to understanding what had happened, he had asked after Lilly. The nurses told him to rest and they would have more information soon. He was pretty sure they drugged him with something at that point because he didn’t wake until the following morning.

In the morning he pushed the red button for all it was worth, repeatedly calling the nurse station. The doctor would eventually come in and give him the news. Lilly didn’t make it; she was pronounced dead at the scene. They didn’t even bring her to the hospital, but had a mortician take her directly to a funeral home. Her brother and wife would eventually show up to give them their condolences. It felt like empty platitudes in a way. Although, he wasn’t feeling much of anything.

That was the last time he had talked to either one of them. Perhaps it was guilt that kept him from reaching out. Although he didn’t really have anything to be guilty for, yet he still felt responsible. He still felt guilty. He felt shame, guilt, disgust. He was angry at everything. How could a world exist that would take her from him? What kind of God would allow this to happen?

***

He woke the next morning with a migraine for the ages. The sun slipping through the shades of the living room was just too much. He wrapped his shirt from the previous night around his eyes to lessen the light as we tried to walk to the bedroom. He didn’t make it as he found himself hugging an all too familiar deity. Emptying his stomach seemed to help, actually relieving the pressure behind his eyes. Water was the next treatment on the agenda as he proceeded to make his way to the kitchen and drink as much as he could hold.

As he was guzzling eight ounces after eight ounces, he heard this light whimpering. It was barely audible and accompanying with a scratching that he couldn’t quite identify. He looked around the house and couldn’t find it, and the sound had mysteriously vanished.

There it was again. He definitely heard it, and it was coming from outside the front door. He searched out the front door as he opened it, trying to identify anything that would make that noise. He saw the small creature, cuddled against its dead mother. It looked like the mother had been hit by a car and had slowly dragged herself into the middle of his lawn. She lay there, not far from his front door, in a poor state of repair. It was amazing she moved at all after being hit.

The small cub pushed helplessly against its mother, trying to illicit a response, squeaking pleadingly. His very essence was crushed as he watched the events unfold. He stood there, crippled in the sorrow of the moment, silently watching. A tear slowly leaked from the corner of his eye as he watched the cub curl up next to its mother.

He didn’t know what to do, but he walked back inside, head still pounding protests. He found a box and put a blanket in it, and then went back outside. The baby racoon was where it had curled up. He gently picked it up and put it in the box and brought it in the house. He took a moment to drink more water as he still felt his head trying to split in two. He tried a couple different foods for the racoon, and the banana did the trick.

While it ate, he called animal services. They advised him that it could be dangerous, diseased, and probably shouldn’t be handled—and that they wouldn’t take it. He said some polite, if tart, remarks as he hung up the phone. He already knew he wasn’t going to throw it outside. He didn’t have a plan; he had no idea what he was doing. But he knew he couldn’t abandon it.

Perhaps he saw himself in the creature. Perhaps he just saw something that had been entirely destroyed by life and it needed help. Perhaps he saw his own redemption. Maybe for the first time he saw hope. It might not have been any of those things. It might have been that something else desperately needed him, and he could help.

Whatever the reason, he would care for his new adopted housemate, for there was no alternative. He had a life that depended on him, and for the first time in many years he had something to anticipate. Perhaps he had hope?