[MF] The Porch

Over the years, I've devoted a lot of thought to how time passes on this porch. Now I wish it would slip away. I'm stuck here, with one less blood vessel to my brain than I had years ago. It is not a bad place to be paralyzed. I overlook a lifetime of memories. I see her grave, and I see the woodchips under the magnolia, all out of place. It's the perfect spot for a garden to go.

When she passed, the stress tore me down. Tending to her grave was a light in the void. She deserved every perfect detail. I spent days and nights picking weeds, removing fallen leaves, and even setting woodchips around the mulch in the correct directions. I had set out to build a perfect garden, and finally had every detail in place. The kids peered from the windows.

The day I was going to start planting, I felt the numbness. The sweat from the beating sun began to feel electric on my face. I turned to the house. One of the kids was watching me. I yelled at him. I faltered over my words. He sprinted out. I collapsed at his feet. We drove into the darkness of the night, and followed the fluorescent yellow among the black roads to the hospital.

Now my final resting place is only 20 yards from hers. Not a single plant there. I'm stuck looking at woodchips, all in the wrong direction.

I think my sons had the right idea, setting me out, each evening, with the best view in our world. I sit here each day wanting to leap toward her. I want to run out like she did with the kids, each day, toward the bus, before school. Despite my best effort, my legs won't move.

In elementary school, that rusty bus delivered elation to the family each day. The kids loved school. It became routine for us to all stand, noses glued on the window, afraid any words would cut the tension. When the bus came within view, I knew I could return to my work, to the pressing mail I cannot remember now. But the rest, they would all patter and wobble around before rushing out the door, their mother included.

I never once jumped off this porch and I sure as shit won't now. The afternoon drags on slowly out here when you're unable to partake in it. The sun freezes on the horizon and the coffee keeps its warmth, one day passes after another. I only wish I could keep her close, like we used to before the kids.

That first day we moved in, the evening shade moved in from the horizon towards the new center of our world. Where the shallow hills, long road, and sparse trees all meet, we sat together and saw that shade sneak towards us. I remember how we waited here, on this porch. After a day of carelessly passing the time, there was silence. We moved closer. The light that the dark had erased was renewed by her warmth. She whispered to me, and it felt like my ear froze. I pulled her in tighter and kept my silence.

The magnolia tree and the buzzing flies are the only ones that keep me company out here, now. The kids are constantly working in the house. I long for that time when she whispered to my heart, or when the cacophony this house was filled with first arrived.

I had forgotten how silence echoed in this house since the day we brought our second son home. We stunned our walking toddler with his newborn little brother. The boy looked curiously at first, like he was missing his magnifying glass, and made his mother burst out with laughter. The image of the boy reaching for his kid brother to lift him up is imprinted in my mind. I retreated to the quiet inside to watch the news as our oldest son and his mother vibrated the walls with laughter for at least an hour.

When the evening comes, and the flies leave me alone, and the wind is dead, I can still hear that muffled laughter. It's like the magnolia tree leans in and echoes it back to me as it remembers it, after all of these years.

The magnolia tree has only proven to be my closest friend in old age. The flies, however, are my number one enemy. The worst inconvenience to my immobile life is the inability to swat the flies. They used to pry at me, but now I think they have realized I can't fight back. They practically live on me now. The only relief I feel is when that shade starts creeping in and the fireflies start lighting up. I know the gnats are soon gone, mosquitos are another story.

That creeping shade brought plenty of new discoveries for our young guys, years ago. They also used to complain of gnats and mosquitoes. They would chase any nagging critters out of the house with a fly swatter, me directly behind them to scoop them up and turn them around. I remember my stomach tightening when they left the front stairs, like they were never gonna stop running away.

Other times brought good discoveries. The chaos that ensued with firefly season, for instance. The boys weaved around the magnolia tree and their heads swiveled from one bug's light to another, never able to focus for long. She was right there with them. I remember how the humidity used to penetrate that screen door from where I watched. It used to sit on my skin like a coating of superglue and I would have to retreat to the kitchen. They would all come in soon after, covered in sweat, and ready for a nighttime snack.

They are the ones preparing my food today. They trade off coming out on the hour to give me a snack. As odd as it seems, you take for granted being able to feed yourself. I don't long for using a fork and knife, but I miss the rituals of food. I would set the table and decide on the meal. I could direct the conversation, and if it was not to my liking, I could put the fork down and get back to my work. For dinner, we sit in the same spot still, out here on the porch as the magnolia tree leans closer to see what we are picking at.

We have always eaten on the porch. Rain or shine and no matter how late in the night it got. The headlights of her car coming up that long road was like a moving lighthouse. Sometimes, I could hear them, before the headlights. Whenever she went to pick them up from college on a long weekend, she would blast what she thought the current music was. They used to hate it.

I would have the porch all set and they would tumble out of the car directly to the table. As we ate, they would ask me questions about my college experience. I left out the good parts about the late nights and trouble she and I used to get into. I thought there would be plenty of time to tell them those stories. Some time when they were not as susceptible to their parents' words. I imagined the laughs we could share when I would tell them in the future. But at all our dinners, it was mostly simple sentences filled in between by soundless bites.

She had a knack for filling that void. She asked the right questions and ignited passion in our kids at the table. And her laugh, it roped you out of wherever you were venturing in your own mind and pulled you back to the present. She made every moment feel more important than the last, and it was only in the stillness that I could find the time to appreciate it. And it was in that stillness that I looked forward to her next act, which would almost assuredly occur as soon as you thought of it.

When she first was diagnosed, I could sense those silences lengthening. First I could only tell when watching intently. In between two moments she would fleet away and return with a blink. She fought like hell though. Lived her life as she had for the past 50 years, like each day was her last. Soon, though, the lulls lengthened and the calm started feeling more like a tension. As strong as she was, the disease was unrelenting.

We used to sit on the porch in the evenings, when she got sick, and time had never gone by as quickly. Taking one another in each others' arms was no longer strong enough to outlast the cold of the night. The cold pushed us inside. Her agonizing cries of pain echo in my head like a fire alarm for the past 5 years. The long bouts of weakness in between, where she did not have the strength to even ask for help, those are the details that deliver my worst pains to this day.

We buried her out by the magnolia. Dug all day in the rain. The soil was wet and easy to shovel. I was giving instructions on where to direct the dirt, and telling the kids not to hit the gas lines. I was getting old, and could not dig as well as them. The oldest had heaped some dirt on my feet, he turned to me and sobbed.

He said something that is imprinted in my mind alongside the other family memorabilia. He told me his mother would say she loved him all the time and he looked deep into my eyes. There was such a gravity behind his glossed over eyes it distorted time. And I froze. I patted him on the back, turned on a heel, and walked inside. We buried her a few hours later.

So now, my permanent shade has finally arrived. The days I spend out here now are stacked against a lifetime of sitting here, me and her. Now, it's just me. Alone with my thoughts. Listening to the flies buzz and the leaves wave. Unable to partake. Patiently waiting.

I hear the kids talk about what they'll do soon enough. One wants to raise his own family here, the other can't bear the difficult memories. So they argue about what I would want, what she would want. They argue until the dusk becomes black. That's when the oldest comes for me.

"You ready pops?"

And that's the time, everyday, I pray to God. I pray to him to give me strength. The strength she had been beaming with. Just for a moment and just for a small act. With every ounce I could, I pleaded from deep in my heart for the ability to reach out. To touch my oldest son's face just like the first day I met him. To get a good look at his eyes that came from his better half and to see the grin that would be so recognizable from the days they chased fireflies. But I called on God long after the sun fell beyond the furthest hills. And with the sun gone, I assumed God had gone too, because all I felt was the ache in my throat. Silence sat in the air. So today, yesterday, and all the days I have known him, my best efforts fall short once more.