In Memoriam by Iris Rosewater

"...
Oh, this world has more
Of coming and of going
Than I can bear..."
-Time/Carol Lynn Pearson
______________________________________________________________________
It was late afternoon by the time Emily began the half-hour journey to meet her sister. The sun had already set, and snow began to fall, dusting yesterday’s six crusted inches. Her chained tires bit noisily into the icy road. Flakes sparkled as they fell, catching the glint of her headlights and then dissolving before her eyes on the warm glass of her windshield. Long ago she learned that no two snowflakes were ever the same, and she pondered the enormity of that concept as this tide of individuality and perfection blew gracefully in the wind. In a day or two, the sun would reclaim them, she knew. It always did… melting them into the softened earth.

Her sister was waiting when she arrived at the airport. They smiled and embraced, settling into their usual seats in the greeting area. Both Emily and Jessica sported matching back packs. Black ones. Each year, on the anniversary of their father’s death, they met at the last place both of them had seen him alive: the airport. It was an odd ritual, but a peaceful one. It was Christmas time, and so the terminal was packed with people rushing to get in and out. They watched and invented lives for the people they saw. The man in the green beanie kitty-corner from them held a bunch of flowers nervously, standing whenever a new gush of passengers filed out of the bottleneck, checking his watch, sitting down again, standing, shifting his weight… they imagined that he was waiting for his fiancé to come home from visiting her parents. They had never been apart for so long. They waited with baited breath to see what she looked like… and then laughed when an elderly woman who must have been his mother emerged. After some people-watching, the backpacks were opened.

Each sister carried a photo album with precious photos of her favorite memories, and they recounted each story, laughing and filling in each other’s details. They ate Little Debbie Star Crunch cookies from shiny plastic wrappers, and drank grape and orange shasta’s at room temperature. Jessica moved like he did. She had the same mannerisms when she talked. She winked the same way. She even had the same dimples. And Emily’s hair was jet black and wavy like his had been, and starting to go salt-and-pepper prematurely. Combined, they were a small monument to him. Proof that he lived. They talked about the last visit… the last words they said. How unexpected his death had been… how young was. How he would have loved their children. What he would think of them now.

Stillness settled over them and they sat watching again, wordlessly. They selected the airport as a meeting place, because they liked to remember their father alive. He felt close, like it had been yesterday that they had last hugged each other and said that it wouldn’t be long before another visit. Although, tonight would make it six years since they last heard his voice. They wondered reverently at the intensity all around them. The coming and going. So many separate lives converging. The groups hardly noticed each other, lost in the gravity of each one’s experience… the elation of reunion: a mother crying with happiness as she held her little ones after being away, lovers kissing, friends squealing with delight. The departures were always more discreet. A melancholy aura surrounded them, and Emily could never watch for long. She felt intrusive, sharing their last moments. No one seemed to notice. No one cared about being a spectacle, letting tears fall freely as a loved one disappeared around that corner… and the waiting began.

For Emily, the freshness of that first cut surfaced in her memory… falling asleep the night he died with wet cheeks… and waking that first morning to the bitterness of her new reality. The first day of waiting the rest of her life to see him again.

The sisters had their own small goodbye in the parking garage outside the airport. Emily held on a bit longer and tighter than usual, allowing a few tears to leak out. Long after Jessica left, she sat in her car and watched the snow. It reflected the pink hue of the clouds above it, and was strangely bright. Out of her bag, she pulled a small pouch of her father’s ashes. In the gray dust, tiny white shards glinted in the soft light. Halfway home, she pulled over with the pouch nestled securely in the palm of her bare hand. With cold digits, red from the chill and the pink light, she poured out the fine dust of her father’s remains and let the soft wind lift them from her fingertips and lose them in the glistening night.