Endings Are Beautiful TWO

"Excuse me...Coming through..."

I shuffled my way past other passengers as they struggled to stow their mostly overstuffed luggage into the overhead bins. In my head, I was gliding and dodging flailing arms and carry-on bags with elegance, but in reality, I was stumbling and staggering past them, the whiskey from yesternight and the airport bar steeping through my veins and seeping from my pores. I struggled to read the seat number, then I struggled to get to and into my seat. I couldn't help but let out a heavy sigh when I finally settled into the grey foam cushions. I had the window seat, thankfully, so I could sink into a few hours of blissful reveries.

"Hi there!" I heard a cheery voice, instantly cutting through the silence a few seconds later.

A quick glance and polite nod was all I could muster up in response. The source a little old lady, 70s perhaps, dressed in a bright blue maxi dotted with tens of daffodils that dwarfed her miniature frame but really highlighted the gorgeous grey of her luscious locks. Much like me, she was certainly not a sight for sore eyes, I thought as I turned back to stare at the tarmac, especially not with how her piercing green eyes peered deeper into my soul than I had ever cared to go.

"Where to neighbour?" She chimed in again.

"Wedding," I responded, curtly.

"Oh lovely! A friend's?" She continued, with a grin so wide, I could see all her perfectly aligned pearly whites.

"My sister's," I said, hoping to end things there.

"Congratulations to her! I bet you're so excited! I've always loved weddings. Didn't get to have a big one myself, but I'm such a sucker for love! Are you meeting your date there? The brother of the bride and a dashing gentleman like you needs a lovely lady on his arm!"

"Nope. Just me."

Before she could think up another quirky retort, a voice from above cut in, announcing our impending take off. I turned my body slightly, fidgeting with the seat belt for as long as I could. Once secured, I riffled through my flimsy little carry-on, knowing in my early morning haste I hadn't packed what I was looking for. With a small huff, I set the bag back under the seat in front of me. No earphones or headphones in sight. Silence it was then.

Not long after we took to the skies, I could feel her eyes settled firmly on the back of my neck as I stared out the window at the cloudy sky. The air tense, buzzing with the sound of her many unsaid words. I knew I had to relent soon enough, my neck was beginning to cramp and there wasn't much of a view.

"Where are you off to?" I asked, struggling to feign an interest in this act of reciprocity, as I turned to look at her.

"A beach. Well, THE beach. I'm going to the Maldives!" she responded breathlessly, a gleam in her eyes like that of a fisherman who'd successfully reeled in a big catch.

"Can you believe that? Little old me sipping cute fruity drinks on a beach, surrounded by nothing but clear blue skies and even clearer water? I mean, I have to do this transit first, then it's off to the beach!" She continued, more to herself than me, looking almost transported to this scene she'd painted.

"Sounds like you're really looking forward to it..."

"Right? You have no idea! I'm no spring chicken, that's clear to see. I had different plans for retirement, plans that didn't include being a widow on the white beaches of the Maldives after a only decade of marriage. But here I am, two for two."

I nodded absently, and she continued on, not needing a captive audience for her much-anticipated soliloquy.

"My husband, God rest his soul, was a good man. Objectively so. Beyond selfless. We met and married late, or later than I would have liked - like I said, hopeless romantic, guilty as charged. But we plan and plan, and God laughs. So He gave me a soulmate at 53. My one truest and dearest love. He'd been married before, had kids, built a home, got divorced. I'd had near misses and none of the rest. But when we met, that was it for me. I'd found my him. We planned out the rest of our whole lives - down to the last day and how we'd live it. Together. Always together. We'd see the world - cruises, safaris, beaches. We'd try all the foods, experience all the cultures, and see all the sights. All of it. Together..."

Maybe it was the sudden change in tone and her trailing off, or maybe she'd actually managed to pique my interest, but I turned to her and asked earnestly, "What happened? To him?"

"He was sick, but it was very quick. The type they call "short illnesses" in obituaries. Didn't suffer, thankfully, and he spent every moment reassuring me and making sure I was going to be OK. Almost like he knew his time would be up soon, and still all he cared about was me."

"I'm so sorry to hear that. Did you ever get to do any of it together? The travel?"

"I wish. He'd always said we'd travel when he retired. But he worked for himself and worked himself into the ground. There was never a retirement age. 55 became 60, then 60 became 65. Then he died. Just a couple months short of 65. But I'm sure if he'd lived, he'd have moved that "retirement" to 70," she responded with a wry laugh.

"Loved his work that much?"

"Oh no," she cackled, her teeth on full display again, "he absolutely hated every moment. It was a dreary job, as an accountant. Stereotypically monotonous. Owned his own firm, but he always said every day felt like the same day in that office...The firm is small but it paid the bills, gave him great savings, educated his kids, and employed a good few people. Including his youngest. Spitting image of him, and every bit of him too. Except she loves it - crunching numbers. Worked twice as hard as everyone else just to show him his life's work was in good hands. I wish she knew that he knew, long before she even started working there - they were his life's work. His kids, never the business."

"So why not step away earlier? Why'd he keep doing it? Surely he could afford even a small break now and then?"

"Partly for her, partly for me. He said he was working so he could show me the world the way I deserved to see it. Luxury - all the finer things we didn't indulge ourselves in. I worked as an office assistant for nearly 30 years, he had 3 kids to feed, there wasn't much left over for either of us to explore with before we met. And when we did, he still felt we didn't have enough because he wanted his people to always have more than enough in the business. Truth is, I would have backpacked through hostels and hitchhiked from town to town if it meant seeing the world with him. Through his big, beautiful blue eyes." She stopped and looked up, just managing to hold back the floodgates, but she couldn't hide the glint forming in her eyes before she could clear her throat to continue.

"He was the dreamer of the two of us. Saw the best in people and in the world. Found the joy in everything - even the job he hated, because he got to do it with and for his baby girl. I don't know anyone who lived with as much as joy as he did. Down to his last days, he kept repeating how lucky he was to have gotten to love me for the decade he did. I couldn't help but think of the decades we wouldn't get. Everyday after he died, I was angry. At him, at God, at life, and the cruelty of waiting a lifetime for love to only get an instant of it."

"How'd you deal with it? The anger? You are literally the happiest person on this whole damn plane!" I said, laughing a little as I recalled my initial hesitation to engage with the animated stranger in the seat next to mine. She didn't feel so strange anymore.

"Honest answer?"

"Mhhmm"

"I haven't. I'm not fully over the anger. It's been 9 years since he died. He's been gone for almost as long as we were together - and it still feels cruel. I simmered there for 4 of those years, then I had to decide to live. To live for me, and for him and the years he didn't get. Even with my anger and my sadness. We're so conditioned to think that life is linear. That things have to happen in a certain order, at a certain time, and come to certain conclusion. For me, I thought if I grieved long enough, I'd be able to reach healing and move on. But the older I get, the more I realize life is rather cyclical. Nothing really ends. Not anger nor the grief. And if you're a believer like me, not even death is an end. You have to keep going, because everything else keeps going either way. With or without our timelines and our plans. It's funny, we spent our years together obsessing over creating this perfect future we weren't even guaranteed, instead of just doing. Just living. So now, I do and I live, and, yep, I still grieve."

"I am truly very sorry for your loss. He sounds like a great man, and it's clear he made such a big impact. It makes me feel guilty for not wanting to live when such good people don't get to...." It was my turn to trail off, choking and stumbling over my words.

She held her hand out, perfectly manicured, a deep navy, her gold wedding band still sparkling on her ring finger. I took it in mine, without hesitation, as her eyes implored me to continue.

"I wish I had that kind of love to speak of, even short-lived as yours was. As they say, 'better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'. Really, I wish I had anything I loved as much as you loved him. I don't even love being alive with that zealousness. I don't want to die, but I don't love living...What you said about plans, that was me. I planned it all, and nothing worked. Not the job, not the wife, not even my family works and they're a couple of hours away. I thought I'd change the world, or at the very least I'd try to. I was sure that by now, I'd have found success in a job I loved, I'd have a wife and kids waiting with open arms at home, and parents who spoke to me and who I spoke to. I was sure I wouldn't be turning up to my little sister's wedding, alone, as the annotation on the family tree that nobody spoke about. When I couldn't fulfill what I felt was my professional purpose, it was as if one thing fell down the drain and the rest just went tumbling in after. So I stopped planning too, but I don't do much of anything either. I wouldn't even know where to start to do. I guess now, I just...am."

"And that's enough sweetie. Plans or none. You are here. And because you are, the least you can do is believe that there's a reason, a purpose for your still being here. It doesn't have to be in a certain job or look the way you dreamed it. Until you're, you know, not here anymore, you owe it to yourself to at least try," she responded, smiling, but with a few tears now creating streaks in the wrinkles on her face that told many a life's story.

I squeezed her hand tighter. I am here, I thought. Still. In spite of my best efforts. All the drunken nights, the barely-a-meal-a-day nights, the countless bar fights, the getting kicked out of houses and not having a single clean article of clothing to my name. I'm still here.

For the first time in a long time, I flirted with the idea of living. This would be the first of many cathartic releases. On a plane, sobered from my drunken stupor by a gleeful older woman with sparkling green eyes and sparklier pearly whites, decked out in daffodils, whose name I didn't even know.

I returned the smile and let go of her hand, "I need my writing hand back for a bit. There's a big brother wedding speech that needs delivering when I land. At the very least, that gives me purpose for the next few days."