Uncle Ted

Uncle Ted      
     
     The lesson of how to deal with death was never on the curriculum in my life teaching Latin to boys in Boston. There was no textbook which could prepare me for my wife’s lymphoma.
     When I sat by her side while she struggled to talk my Harvard education left me in a fog. I held her hand like when we dated. She gripped me with the strength of ten women.
     I joined a grief therapy group where I met a woman. We gave each other words to hold onto which mattered and made sense. My love for my wife wasn’t diminished by my affection for this woman.
     And one morning I walked through Ocean Park, Maine. I saw three doves perched on a power line. Then there were three fawns beside the road watching me. At that point, I knew my wife had left this earth. My days were numbered too. The Bible says that a man’s years are threescore and ten.
     One evening I laid on the bed relaxing in the autumn breezes from the window. My new love sat in the recliner sleeping. The crab dug into my chest with a pain I’d never known. My partner awoke and held me. But I’d already paid the ferryman to cross the Styx. She called the ambulance and I was revived.
     After bypass surgery, my ticker clicked along normally. Dolly and I strolled to the beach where on that day, across Saco Bay, was a strange formation of clouds. It was a mighty localized thunderstorm passing quickly. It consisted of a large grey flat-topped cumulous cloud. Below it everything was grey mist with columns of rain stretching down.
     It was moving swiftly, slightly inland from Prout’s Neck to our left. The storm made its way out to sea. Bright yellow lightning bolts traced their way among the columns of rain in the mist.
     As the storm passed it was so far away nothing was heard except the constant breaking of the waves. The storm headed out to sea and began to disintegrate. The columns of rain became jagged and less thick. The cloud appeared to spread out into light grey mist and the sun came out like dawn.
     Her hand in mine was the light of life which reminded me that I was alive and not alone. I never would need the Bible to tell me how long I had. The sea would outlive me and perhaps humanity. Yet, what lay beyond the horizon of life, no book can say.