The Lovely Shadow (32 page)

The funeral was held in a small Baptist
church on the edge of town and only about seventy people were able
to attend, with dozens of other friends and family back in
Louisiana unable to finance the trip.

The service was beautiful, full of singing
and stories. At least fifty different people got up to tell stories
about times that Miss Lilly had either lifted them up, or beaten
them down, and then lifted them up.

The one theme that dominated every story that
was told was that of Miss Lilly’s unconditional love for everyone
she came into contact with. It was abundantly clear that Miss Lilly
did not simply live her life; she gave her life to all the people
around her.

I had always known that I was exceedingly
fortunate to have had Miss Lilly as a major influence in my life,
but until her funeral I had not really understood just how lucky I
truly was. I had been blessed beyond all measurable value to have
had her in such a prominent position in my life, and would gladly
have spent several lifetimes trapped in a basement if I could only
have her back for a short while.

Miss Lilly had very little in the way of
assets and personal possessions and what she did have she did not
leave to anybody specifically. Instead she left a provision in her
will stating that all of her possessions were to be sorted through
by her friends and family, and anyone who wanted anything could
have it, providing that everyone that took any items was
responsible for making sure that all of her possessions were
removed from June’s house in order to spare June and I the trouble
and heartache of sorting through the leftovers.

The only items that were specifically given
were given to June and I.

To June, Miss Lilly left her oversized Bible
that was always on her nightstand beside her bed and inside that
Bible was a letter for June that I never had the nerve to ask to
read. And to me she left a special gris-gris that she had made for
me, though she did not indicate what blessing the bag was supposed
to bring.

Miss Lilly also indicated in her will that it
was her desire for me to take possession of her and Louie’s
ashes.

It is my desire that Johnny Krimshaw become
the custodian of my remains, and those of my husband, Louie.

Johnny, you know your gift, and I know you
will not shy away from the responsibilities your gift will force
upon you.

It is my desire that every time you put your
gift to use successfully, that you would sprinkle a pinch of our
ashes in the place where you succeed.

I knew after reading Miss Lilly’s
instructions for me that there was no longer any way for me to
weasel out of using my ‘gift’ for the greater good of dead
humanity. Even if I could have found a way to lie to myself and
ignore the gift with a clear conscience before the reading of the
will, there was no way I could do so after the reading. I could not
allow myself let Miss Lilly down.

I decided it was time to fully embrace my
gift and start planning my life around the consequences such a gift
inevitably brought with it. Though I must admit, I was still pretty
relieved when I considered that I still had two years of school
left, and possibly college after that, before I could really try to
put my gift to use.

After the funeral we held a reception at the
farm. Miss Lilly’s family and friends were welcomed into our home
as if they were our own family and friends. It was a heartwarming
occasion and I began to realize that Miss Lilly’s impact on
everybody she touched was similar to the impact she’d had on
me.

Not one person at any point during the
reception launched into a case of the poor-me’s. Nobody tried to
convince anybody else that the loss of Miss Lilly was somehow
greater in their own life than in anybody else’s. Everybody had
enough love for, and understanding of, Miss Lilly and her impact in
people’s lives to know that everybody was equally impacted; nobody
more so or less so than anybody else.

Though many tears were shed by many people
throughout the entirety of the reception, the general atmosphere
was one of gaiety and jubilant celebration rather than a somber and
mournful affair, for which I was truly glad. I felt that Miss Lilly
would prefer to be remembered with laughter over tears any day.

When the reception was over, the house was
remarkably clean. Although June and I had protested, the guests had
insisted on seeing to the chores; the full garbage’s were taken
out, the food was put away and all the dishes were washed and put
away.

Miss Lilly’s room had been gone over with a
fine tooth comb. Not like a group of vultures had descended upon
it, but with the tenderness and grace of those who were honoring a
dead friend’s request to help with the painful chore of cleaning
up. The only items that remained after the reception were the large
heavy pieces of furniture.

When the reception ended and silence finally
descended upon the house again, June and I sat together at the
kitchen table and discussed the general feeling of happiness that
had been so prevalent through the reception, and how much it warmed
our hearts to see that Miss Lilly’s love had not been reserved
solely for us, but had been distributed equally among everybody she
had known.

Finally, after chatting about Miss Lilly and
life in general we had exhausted ourselves enough to find comfort
in sleep and we kissed each other good night and headed off to
bed.

When I entered my room I immediately saw that
my notepad was laying on my bed again, and also detected a faint
trace of rose scent still lingering in the air. I knew that the
intensity of the smell was faint enough to mean that Elle had been
there recently but had already departed, so I did not bother
looking for her, but instead went for the notepad.

It is good to hear you laugh, so many lose
their joy in the face of sorrow.

Elle

It was the first note I’d ever received from
Elle with a personal signature on it, and it was the signature that
I focused on, more so than the message. I couldn’t help wondering
if the fact that she’d added a personal touch to the note in the
form of a signature meant that we were finally growing closer.

I knew it was foolish of me to fantasize
about having some kind of relationship with a dead girl, but I
couldn’t help it. Elle seemed to embody all of the qualities that
make a woman wonderful.

The faint images in my mind were enough to
convince me that she was beautiful beyond compare. The deviousness
of hiding my clothes and hiding a spoon in my sock all those years
ago showed that she possessed a humorous streak and enjoyed
mischief. And the notes, along with the cradling I’d received from
her showed a streak of love and compassion at least a mile wide in
her. And I wondered if her desire to remain just out of sight might
indicate that she was shy or unsure of herself, and therefore not
prone to narcissism.

I thanked Elle out loud as I was getting into
my pajamas, put the new note into my dictionary with the other
ones, clicked out the lamp and fell into sleep almost as soon as my
head hit the pillow.

I will never know if the gentle kiss that I
felt on my cheek as I drifted into dreamland was real or imagined,
but either way, I went to dreamland smiling at the end of a day
that had been full of sorrow and joy.

By the summer’s end, June and I had begun to
find our new rhythm in the house without Miss Lilly there. We never
quite got over the fact that we felt like a band without a drummer,
but we still managed to keep the music flowing and found our way in
a world that seemed a bit darker without Miss Lilly’s light shining
forth, illuminating our path.

I have never been one to spend much time
brooding. Up to the age of sixteen I had always assumed that I
would be able to handle anything that life threw at me without
spending an undue amount of time complaining—silently or out
loud—about the curveballs, spitballs, fastballs, and inside pitches
that were hurled my way.

After Miss Lilly’s death and the year that
followed, however, I did seem to find myself spending more than
usual amounts of time considering just how unfair life could be,
and how cruel a master Time could be to us, His humble
servants.

Time flows relentlessly forward like a river,
sometimes serenely but always powerfully; eroding our defenses,
changing the course of our lives in ways we never expect, and often
carrying us places we have no desire to go. But like a boat without
oars caught in the swift current of that river, we are powerless to
change the direction that Time has decided we must travel.

June and I had thought that good old Father
Time had played his dirtiest trick on us on June 10th, 1999—my
sixteenth birthday and the Dia De La Meurte for our dear Miss
Lilly. I truly wish that Time had been finished serving up bad
cards then, but as it turned out, Time still had several more decks
to deal from, and the hand He dealt next was was one that even dead
Louie—who had nothing to lose—wouldn’t have bet on.

The new school year brought with it some new
challenges. Testing was heavy that year and college prep was the
dominant theme through the entire school year. Each day I came home
bedraggled and weary.

It just didn’t feel right coming home after a
hard day at school and not having Miss Lilly there, offering me
snacks and practically begging to hear how my day went. It was the
hardest part of life without Miss Lilly for me to adjust to.

On top of a heavy course load at school, I
tried to pick up as many of Miss Lilly’s responsibilities around
the house as I could so that June would not have to. As tired as I
was each day when I got home, June was usually flat out exhausted
when she got home. I just wouldn’t have felt right if she would
have had to come home and cook and clean and powder my butt for
me.

I had a long way to go before I was as good a
cook as Miss Lilly had been, but I had been an attentive student in
her kitchen and I could do a passable job at it. June was never one
to complain about a meal she didn’t have to cook so we at least
managed to avoid starvation in Miss Lilly’s absence.

Once or twice a week I would go through and
vacuum the house and dust the flat surfaces. I also mowed the lawn
every weekend during the growing season, but that had been my chore
since I was old enough to push a mower.

June and I did our own laundry individually.
I had no desire to see her unmentionables, and I had far too many
track marks in mine to be comfortable with her seeing them.

To make a long story short, school was more
challenging than ever the year after we lost Miss Lilly, and home
had become more challenging as well. The new responsibilities at
home beat the Hell out of being locked in a basement eating dryer
cooked hot dogs, fo’ sho’, but it was still challenging.

Whenever I felt my stress levels rising to a
point where I thought they might just kill me, or cause me to kill
someone else, I would go to my room and pull the gris-gris that
Miss Lilly had made for me out of my treasure drawer. It was the
same drawer that contained my dictionary and several notes from
Elle, as well a couple photographs of Joe and my mother.

Gris-gris in hand, I would sit at the chair
in my dormer window staring out at the scenery and rubbing it
gently between my fingers while thinking about Miss Lilly’s big
round smiling face. I didn’t know what charms Miss Lilly had imbued
the gris-gris with, but it was comforting to hold it.

More often than not I would cry while I
fingered it, but the tears were not soul wrenching tears of
depression. They were instead, somehow cleansing; washing away my
burden of stress and polishing me up for the challenges I still had
to face.

On more than one occasion, while I was lost
in memory and trying to unwind, I sensed Elle’s presence in the
room. Sometimes I could sense her only by scent, but other times by
a scent and a gentle hand on my shoulder.

At first I looked for her when I sensed her,
but she remained completely invisible to my eyes and eventually I
quit trying to see her. She was growing closer to me, of that I was
sure, but she was still too unsure of herself to reveal herself to
me in any type of visible form other than the occasional fleeting
glimpse of her shadow which I could only see from the corners of my
eyes.

I tried repeatedly to make contact with her
but our relationship seemed to be frustratingly decided on her
terms, not mine. But usually when I found myself in the grip of
despair or depression she would reveal herself in subtle ways,
though never visually.

Elle seemed to be particularly tuned in to
despair and I often wondered if she had suffered great tragedy in
her life, or perhaps succumbed to the pitfalls associated with the
deepest levels of depression and taken her own life.

I figured it was something like that but I
also figured I would always be left wondering, for I doubted she
would ever grow comfortable enough in my presence to tell me
anything about herself. But I hoped that given enough time she
would become confident enough of my love for her to open up.

Time; that cruel master that forces us
forward with all the unrelenting ferocity of Pharaoh’s toughest
taskmasters. Driving us forward with the whip and with the truth
that the greatest reward we can hope to gain by following along
placidly is a peaceful and painless death, while at the same time
imbuing us with the truth that death may come to us at any time;
unannounced, and far from peaceful or painless.

June had been weary all that summer, and I
had taken up as much responsibility as I could to allow her more
time for rest after work, but as our cruel taskmaster marched us
ever onward, I began to become concerned with June’s weariness.