Thanks for reading and, mayhaps, responding. ^__^
Also, one more note: this was originally written as a writing exercise, inspired by this piece of art:
She was beautiful. I remember the day she sat down for me so clearly. Another wave of my life floated up and away as I exhaled the smoke from yet another cigarette. I hadn't smoked since she made me an ultimatum: "Joseph Liam," she had said. Telling her my full name is the only thing I regret. "I love you and you know it, but unless you stop this habit I'm leaving you. I won't have such a thing taking you away from me and I will not be subject to that grief." She always talked as such, so formally, when she was angry. Sometimes I had to keep myself from laughing.
I took another drag and ran my fingers down the cold glass that housed my favorite reminder of her, and turned away. I walked into the kitchen and amongst the garbage found the box of incense and grabbed the bag I'd prepared last night. Today is the thirtieth anniversary of Hannah's death. Today is my last pilgrimage to her, even if I don't know it yet. I open the door. I step out. The sun is just rising from the horizon, cutting through the skyscrapers. My back to the sun, I begin walking.
The first couple of hours are uneventful: shops, buildings, people, cars. The year after her death I began this walk, and I hadn't prepared any water to take with me before hand. "Water is free" I thought in my utterly naive and still perhaps grief-stricken mind. Well, let me tell you this: water is NOT free. In fact, a gallon of it is almost fifteen dollars if you buy it in 20-ounce bottles. I argued for nigh twenty minutes on the cost of the water that day but the shopkeeper, Omar, never did budge. In any case, on my 29th time past these shops, it was uneventful.
By ten o'clock, I was out of the city and walking south. It's August, just like every year, and the trees are the color of a sunset. Reds, oranges yellows. Beautiful. On the seventh year of my pilgrimage, I stopped and ate lunch not far from here. Moodies' was the name of the diner. Had a nice outdoor patio where you could sit, smoke, and watch the leaves change as you do it. It was actually quite a popular restaurant. I say "was" so many times because on the either year, when I came back across it, it was a burned-out building. I didn't eat lunch that year. As I walk past Moodies' now, the trees that made it such a popular restaurant are now beginning to overtake the remnants of the surviving framework. I stop here for fifteen minutes today, eat lunch, and watch the leaves change.
After lunch I begin walking again. It's eleven-thirty now, give or take a few minutes. This route is always nice and shaded from the sun; at least it has been since I started walking it. Around 1:45, as the sun is beginning its downward slant to meet up with the western horizon (though it's still very high in the sky now) I reach where Hannah crashed. My monument, worn by the elements and knocked to the ground by a mixture of those elements, the carelessness of man, and wild animals is broken into a few pieces, and the picture is ripped. I set my bag down and right the monument. From my bag I then take a hammer, nails, and some bits of wood. The first time I found it in such condition (it amazingly stayed in pretty good shape until that, the ninth, year) I was furious. I made Rosalyn, who had just gotten her license not three days before, drive out with my tools so I could fix it. These days I brought my tools with and fixed it when it was broken. After I had done that, I replaced the old picture with a new copy, which I had to do every year. I took a stick of incense and let it burn.
"Hannah..." I spoke aloud. "I know you're disappointed in me, so today I've decided to stop again." I fished the pack of cigarettes from my pocket, removed the rest of the plastic, and burned those with the incense. "I... I just hope that's the only way I've disappointed you." I sat for a while, watching the smoke from the cigarettes and incense twist together and rise to the heavens. Finally, I stomped out the remaining smolders from the cigarette package and gently extinguished the incense. I left another stick, unlit, there. I don't know why I did it, it's just another tradition. Really, the incense itself didn't become a tradition until the thirteenth year. I think she would have liked it. When I left, it was around two-thirty. I began to head back east.
The shortest and most uneventful part of my pilgrimage followed. No trips down memory lane here, nothing angering or eventful ever took place on this part of the walk. This walk, the walk between the crash-site and the graveyard, was the solemn part of my walk where I walked in silence and self-examination. At the end of this trek is Rosalyn, our daughter. Ever since she found out where I went every year on this day when she was sixteen (before I had her stay with friends or had a babysitter stay with her) she came here with me. Thirty-six and she hasn't missed once in twenty years. It's now seven forty and the sun is starting to match the leaves. I walk down the aisles of gravestones and meet up with our daughter. "You're getting slower every year, daddy." She still calls me daddy.
I smile. "I'm sorry, honey." I take another stick of incense out from my bad and put it on the well-kept incense holder on the top of the gravestone. I light it, hold my daughter, and we bow our heads. In the old days when we would come here (I of course brought her other times when she was younger) and even when she began coming here with me on this day, of her own device, she would be the one crying and I would end up driving her home. Today, however, I am the one who lets loose a tear. Rosalyn looks at me and I can't do anything but smile my bittersweet smile. Even with tragedy, we survived and our daughter turned out something wonderful. As I bowed my head, I saw: she had brought Hannah's favorite flowers. I composed myself and spoke; “Ross, hon, are you ready to go?"
"Whenever you are, daddy." We walked to her car after extinguishing the incense and she drove me home. "Do you want to come in and have a cup of coffee, Ross?" I offered. She shook her head and gave me a hug. "I need to get back to Jack and the kids." I smiled and kissed her forehead. "Okay, honey. Be careful." "I will, daddy."
That night, Hannah came to me in a dream. "I see you finally quit, Joseph Liam." Her face was tight in a frown, but even then she was beautiful. And then, the frown softened into her even more beautiful smile. "You did a wonderful job." I couldn't do anything but smile as she took me into her embrace.
