[WomenMoveMe]

I have often tried to recall the moment I went bursting into the middle of that circle of women. Standing there in front of her. Ill-prepared, and as if lost and lovesick, certain all life would leave me were I not to at least try to make her see me. Yet I can not. I do not remember walking over although I know I must have done so. It was as though I just materialized there. Aching to reach out to her, longing to brush the hair from her brow, grateful just to be close enough to feel her essence wash over me. And at the risk of being rejected, rebuffed, and ridiculed, I spoke to her. I had no idea what I was to say, but when I spoke, I looked directly into her eyes, and simply uttered "you need me". Of course it was the other way around. I needed her, but I had no control over anything I was doing at that point. And those three little words... "you need me" ...were the words that tumbled from my mouth...my person...and my heart.

She was taken aback. She chuckled softly at the absurdity of my declaration. And as she took in the whole of me, that smile appeared once again. It's beauty rendering me unable to do anything but wish for an eternity of reveling in it's warmth. It seemed I stood there for hours, paralyzed with fear she would turn me away. When she finally spoke, she offered only an "I do, huh?". I nodded, telling her if only she would dance with me, I would tell her all the reasons why. She did...I did...and it was done.

We spent the next two days talking. We called in sick to our work and talked. We became inseparable. I was able to share myself with her completely without worry of losing her or feeling the disappointment I had always felt when unable to reveal my thoughts and feelings. She was patient. She saw me without having to be told what she was seeing. It was the first time in my life I was certain I was loved, not in spite of who I was, but because of who I was, and my heart was moved. I loved her with all that I was or was ever to be. All previous life and love’s heartache and pain faded away with just the thought of her. All the love I thought I felt before paled in comparison and was forgotten with just the presence of her. We did not have to speak the words to know it was there. Silence with her was more than all the words I had ever shared with another. I now understood what it was to be willing to die for another. I was sure I had loved before. I now knew, I had never truly loved. She was all I had ever needed and I was angry at the universe for not having brought her to me sooner. I felt she was my reward for all I had loved and lost, for being a good person regardless of what life had thrown at me. It had always been my place to protect the relationship. I had always been the one to bend and make things right. She knew of these things and was versed in what it took to sustain love and intimacy. We were equals and it was good.

She had always managed to remain slim despite having a very healthy appetite. So when she began to lose a little weight, we were not concerned. She lost more and more weight and with it came a fatigue she was unable to shake. I urged her to go to the doctor but she was a stubborn one and assured me she just had some sort of flu or some such thing. It nagged at me and I would not take “no” for an answer. We went to the doctor and after battery and battery of tests, MRI’s, and giving every bit of her blood, we were told she had ovarian cancer. Had it simply been ovarian cancer there would have been a pretty good shot at dealing with it. However, in that we had waited so long, it had spread into her spine and was now untreatable. She was going to die and it was my fault. I should have made her go to the doctor when I first felt something was amiss.

She was so apologetic to me. Can you imagine? She was dying and here she was apologizing to me! I was riddled with guilt at not having insisted she seek medical attention. We weathered the storm for quite some time. Chemo and radiation took their toll on her and I did all I could to make her comfortable. She had blood transfusions, an obscene amount of medications, and pain she tried to keep from me. She went through periods when she was not in so much pain and others where it was unbearable.

I was still trying to work and tend to her. I set up a hospital room in our home and when she was in a good period, I brought her home as this was where she was most comfortable and I could tend to her every need. Eventually I stopped going to work. They were very sympathetic to our plight but they needed someone who could be there. I understood this and knew, no matter how much I loved the job, and needed the comfortable living it had helped provide us, my place was with her. I was given a exceptionally huge severance when I was reluctantly let go and I knew this was my boss’s way of helping. I was touched and for perhaps the only other time in my life, felt appreciated by anyone other than her.

She rapidly began to fail. I was at a loss to do anything and hated myself for being inadequate. I wanted to take her place, to take the pain that was now more often than not unbearable. I refused to give up on her, completely disregarding the pain she was in. I spent every dime I had trying to make something happen that was never going to happen. I was under the impression if only I could keep her alive and breathing, somehow I could make her well. I now know I was afraid. I was afraid to be without her. I was not strong enough to face the loss of her, without her. Once she was gone, she was the one person I would need to get through it.

She was now in the hospital full-time and had been for quite a while. I spent every moment with her. The hospital figured out they could not get rid of me and put a cot in her room for me. She was sedated much of the time and I was left to my own thoughts. I came to realize my selfishness. I has urged her to hang on, in excruciating pain and suffering, because I was not strong. She was dying of cancer and I was the weak one. I sat beside her, holding her hand. She turned her head to look at me. Her hair had gone gray and it matched the pallor of her skin. Those that might see her for the first time would not see the beauty she once held, but I never stopped seeing it. Even in her last moments, her body ravaged, the life all but gone from her person, she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.

I leaned in, my lips close to her ear. I told her I loved her. I told her it was never her that needed me, but me that needed her. I apologized to her for making her hold on because I was weak. I thanked her for loving me, for allowing me to love her, for giving me purpose, for making my life worthwhile. She struggled to breathe, to talk. I told her not to speak. There was no reason anymore. I told her I knew what she wanted to say and it was not necessary. I knew I was loved. I felt it every moment of every day we spent together and I would forever remember the warmth, the passion, the goodness that was us. I told her it was time to just let go. I promised I would carry on. I promised I would forever love her. I would find the strength to go on, to remember her, to tell others about her and how much I loved her, and she me. I felt a tiny pressure on my hand as she attempted to squeeze it. I sat with her for almost two hours. We stared at one another not saying anything. I tried without great success not to cry and I was able to stop only when she began to have tears running down her cheeks. I did not want that for her and that alone gave me the strength to dry my tears. She closed her eyes and again I felt the tiny pressure on my hand. An almost inaudible little gasp of air escaped her mouth. It was the softest of sounds to the rest of the world, but to me it was deafening as the world came crashing down upon me. Gone was the tiny pressure on my hand as hers went limp. Gone was the woman for whom I had been willing to die. Gone was the woman willing to live for me.

The guilt of my weakness in her last years destroyed me. I shut down once again and was inconsolable. I went for days, sometimes a week or two without speaking to another. I contemplated ending my life but remembering my oath to her to carry on, I did not. I had not been able to return to our home after her death and have no idea the fate of the things that once belonged to us. I didn’t care. They were things and I now knew things meant nothing. I didn’t care about anything or anybody, including myself. I was compelled once again to roam.

I ended up in Michigan. I took a job as a medical coordinator for a region of group homes that catered to developmentally disabled/mentally ill adults. I found myself well-suited to this work as for the most part these people were not able to carry on conversations and did not care about who I was and from where I came. They were as wrapped up in themselves as I was and that worked well for me. Only once in my years in that position, did one of the clients ask me about myself. Her name was Beverly and while we were not to have favorites, she was mine. I called her “Bevvy-poo” and she called me “Superstar“. I was taking her to a doctor’s appointment one day and as we walked back to the car, she stopped in the parking lot, hugged me, and asked “why you always so sad Superstar?”. I began to cry. Beverly held me, telling me she loved me, and “don’t be sad”. We had to have been quite the sight there in that parking lot. It was the only time in years I had allowed another to touch me, to comfort me, to see my weakness. I would never have allowed that had it not been for the genuine concern, the innocence, the friend that was my “Bevvy-poo“.

It was New Year’s day and as typically happens on holidays, we had someone call off work. I had no family and no life and while I did not go around advertising this, my boss knew I had nothing. She asked if I might be able to fill in and I said I would. On my way to work, my car sputtered and died on the highway. I put the emergency flashers on and moved to the shoulder. It is the last thing I remember that day. In fact, it is the last thing I remember for weeks. I died at the scene. I did not see any bright light, however, nor was there anyone with a pitchfork poking me in the butt. I woke a couple of weeks later from my coma, disoriented and worried I had not made it to work. I was essentially nothing but broken and shattered bones, punctured lungs, and remorse in that I had not stayed dead. I was to spend months in the hospital and many more months in rehab learning to once again walk. It was during my recovery from the accident it was discovered I had a tumor. It was ovarian. This should have been bad news to me, but it seemed deserved somehow. This was my penance for selfishly making her stay with me because I was not strong enough to let her go. I have since recovered fully and live to see another day.

It was after the accident and the recovery I began to think about the state of my familial relationships. It was after the accident I vowed to return to Kentucky in an effort to once again become a part of my long lost family. I had no delusions of once again being a “daddy’s girl”. At this point I wished only to be a part of his life, a welcome part of his life, to be accepted by him as the person I had become.

I moved to Kentucky and bought a tiny house on two acres in the nothingness of the woods. My father lived about 25 miles away in another town. I figured this was enough distance if my plan for reconnection went awry. I summoned all my bravery one day and visited his office. He was not there when I arrived and his secretary told me he was at lunch and would be returning shortly. She asked my name. It did not seem to strike her at all that my last name was the same as my father’s. I waited and as I did so, I wrestled with the thought that because he was not here, perhaps it was a sign I should not be either. However, I had gotten this far and was determined to see it through. Good or bad, I would know my place before I left this building.

The secretary attempted to make small talk but I was not at all interested. This was one of the things I had noticed about Kentucky, people were nice. They wanted to talk, to chat. I found this annoying as I left the state long ago and had been a hermit for many many years now. I sometimes tried to return the small talk, but found I was hopelessly disinterested and not at all good at it. It made me uncomfortable and I just could not seem to muster that “when in Rome” thing. No matter how long I was in Kentucky, I was never going to be able to talk about nothing.

He walked in, asked for his messages, and glanced my way without recognizing me. Why would he? It had been over thirty years since we had spoken, much less seen one another. His secretary told him I was there to see him. She even told him my name, still nothing. He headed down the hall to his office asking me to join him as he went. He sat behind his large desk and asked me to sit in the chair across from him. He looked right at me, asking how he could help me. I looked right back at him and simply said “Hi Dad”. He leapt from the chair, rushing around the desk to embrace me so hard I thought I might faint from lack of oxygen. He was happy to see me and I was relieved. He told me he had been trying to track me down for years but always seemed to be a step or two behind me. He told me of my family, his horses, his farms, his life. I was feeling emotional and not wanting my father to see it, told him I had an appointment and had to leave. We exchanged phone numbers and vowed to get together. He hugged me again, telling me he was so happy I was back. I fought back tears because I knew he meant it, and it made me happy.

I have been here in Kentucky and a bona-fide member of the family for going on two and a half years now. He has retired his practice and spends his time playing golf, riding horses, and raising bees. All of which I do with him on a regular basis. He has mellowed and while he was always a kind and gentle man, he now has the ability to show it. He says nice things to and about me. Perhaps the nicest thing he has ever said to me is when I apologized at one point for having been young and stupid, and he assured me I did not have the lock on stupid. That, for my father, was an apology. An apology I was not expected to verbally acknowledge because I am like my father, and sometimes we just know.

Now I find myself a homeowner in Kentucky. I have dogs, a cat, and a fish. I have family ties. I have a job I love. I have loneliness. I am restless and feel as though there is more for me somewhere. I know it is not Kentucky as I am convinced I am the only lesbian in the whole of the state. I have met some women, one in particular that interested me but I was not able to go any further than the interest. Even after all these years, I still remember the one I lost. The one I loved. The one who loved me.

This brings on quite the dilemma. Loneliness, not being over past love, and living in the middle of nowhere, seemingly hundreds of miles from another with similar proclivities. Factor in not wanting to disappoint my father by once again pulling up stakes and roaming, I am in quite the mess. The folks are older now and I have missed so much time with them. I do not want to leave them, but I find this increasing loneliness, restlessness, calling me to regions unknown.

I know not what I want. I am certain that even if I knew, I would find myself unable to act upon it. I found it once, with her. Perhaps that was my only chance to ever know the very thing I needed. Perhaps I should simply get used to the loneliness. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Whatever it is I will do, I refuse to live a life of “perhaps”. I have done much to much of that and is has gotten me here. Right back where I started…the quiet, awkward, unattractive little girl…searching for my place in the world.