Souls in the shoebox

Souls in the shoebox

Three knocks with Mikes knuckles on the side of Hope’s casket; his middle knuckles are hitting it hard enough to have it shake the casket just a bit. He whispers under his breath, I’ll miss you Hopie, he’s in thought and his dreams are shattered. You can hear the echoing as if we are in a hollow space in time. Of all of the decisions he has had to make for General Motors are nowhere as tough as the decision to let go of his mother as they lower into the ground. He stands back blinking as to holding back. His tears push their way through his blonde eyelashes tears are free flowing down from his crystal blue eyes.

This life would never be the same for Mike. I can only reflect from the stories of the farm that his time with Hope and Bill were life changing as a young boy growing up on a farm. He once told me that, his first job on the farm was to chase the cows back to the farm, not just for Hope and Bill but also for the neighbors. They seemed to listen he told me once, they were such big cows; you wouldn’t think that they would listen to a boy, If I was late for school, it was an excuse absent. No fences he just said with a smile, that was a long time ago. The farm was a dream of the boys to have a place to play as a kid, later to hunt on it, fish, or just have a beer behind the barn it was home. The oldest kids in the family were devastated with the loss as much as Hope and Bill were until Bill got his first paycheck for driving truck, he was thrilled with the concept of a check to cash with no worries on if the cows were going to get sick or die. He would be able to have a sure bet now. He could count on hard times, but he would have a check to balance it out also.

No matter how hard they all wanted the farm to survive, with Bill getting unguent fever, hard times hit the farming industry and the farm was sold. Much like Mike not being able to save the farm, he was now facing a greater loss, the life his best friend Hope.

Mike had the private of knowing Hope and Bill for three years before the other kids started coming. Mike says he has seen Hope make dinner with no money to buy food, Bill kissing Hope on the neck and taking her on a ride on the tractor after dinner or down to the fishing hole. He has seen Hope fall down time after time pregnant chasing cows that had no fences to hold them in.

We are all at the casket’s sight waiting and watching for a sign from Hope that she will be safe in heaven and that God will greet her at the game himself.

As the hot summer breeze doesn’t blow we watch the casket in it’s black strap sway back and forth just a bit to be noticed by all of her kids, and our spouses. No questions are asked or answered, it is death.

My heals sink into the ground, they are as shaky as I am with no real direction except for down this first hill of the cemintary. I can almost feel the soft kisses that I use to through up on this hill as we passed by it on the way to Port Sanilac.

“ Make a sign of the cross as Hope did and then blow a kiss for Shawn”

Mike is holding on to Bills one arm as Tony has the other guiding Bill to safety from the pain that won’t stop for Bill. He has chosen not to go to Hope’s bedside as she was dieing in Deckerville. They had said their good byes in private he has said. It is what they agreed to be as the hospital bed in no place for love like theirs, no it was a life time of telling and showing each other what they felt in the roughest of times, love was never scares. I witnessed it myself for many years. I thought, it was my life goal to find that kind of love that was played out in front of me all of my life.

With the shadows of gravediggers waiting to complete their jobs, we see the finial stage of life from the corners of my eyes. I wanted to hear something; like a Banshee like Hope has always said could be heard from the top of that cemetery, but it was just dead silent. Regressing to a child in thought, I hold to hold her hand again, I want to slide her bra strap back up her dress again. I wanted to touch her soft cheeks again, and hold her hand so she isn’t scared this time. Like she always did for me.

Standing in front of the Carsonville, we stand in silence waiting for the rest of the family to arrive. In side the hot muggy bar sits the Quinlan kids, waiting for Bill to give us some words of wisdom. There are only tears filling our eyes as we try to find a seat close to each other. Almost like when we were younger, climbing on top of each other to get warm. We are now cuddled to find comfort. The heat of this day seems to make the old oak boards on the floor stick as we try to pull them into the table to have private conversations. Bill sits and stairs at his hand with his ring on it, pulling the St. Christopher medal back and forth through the chain he wears on his neck. In deep though, he glides it across his chin as it in on a track.

The day moves into darkness for all of us, as the reality has started to sink in Bill will be alone and Hope is gone. Back at Hope and Bills apartment there is a few of us trying to get Bill settled in before we go to our own homes. His unsteady legs take him to his favorite chair next to the window. As I sit on the couch across from Bill I can see the smoke billowing out the side window, “ she is all I ever wanted Erin, I nod, saying. I know Bill, I know. No you don’t know Erin, when your mother walked across the room, got a lump in my throat.” Tears now are streaming from his faded blue eyes, His black and red hanky being pulled out of his back pocket. No you couldn’t possible know Erin. I started to clean up the kitchen and put stuff away, his kitchen has pots and pans in the sink upside down as Hope had often let drip dry. I am trying to leave Bill some privacy as he breaks for what seem to me the first time in his life.

Car doors slam, purses close, keys rattle as my brothers and sisters start on there way back home. I want to go too, I don’t want to be a part of this sadness,

Hopes spirit flows through the apartment like a lingering smell of her perfum Evening in Paris, but this doesn’t feel like an evening in Paris to me.

Aug 14^th 2010 Erin Q.