Some Things

 Some things are too terrible to grasp at once. Other things--naked, sputtering, indelible in their horror--are too terrible to really ever grasp at all. It is only later, in solitude, in memory, that the realization dawns: when the ashes are cold; when the mourners have departed; when one looks around and finds oneself--quite to one's surprise--in an entirely different world. 

--The Secret History, Donna Tartt

It is summer and we are at the Metolius River, camping, I, my father, my mother, and my first wife. It is the last summer she and I will be together and it is already showing. It is night, not late, but already full darkness has fallen, and I have come away from the campsite for a walk around the immediate area, alone because my wife doesn't want to walk, preferring to hide in the tent from the mosquitoes. Or that's what she says. To be honest, no one has felt like doing much. We are just all trying to do what we used to do. It's not easy. And it is never-ending. I have seen my father, instead of fishing, several times simply sitting at the base of a tree, head down. It was very hot in the daytime, but that was not the reason. The darkness whispers with the chirping of crickets and the occasional buzz of a bullbat's wings overhead and is barred by the thick trunks of the tall Ponderosa Pine trees. I can smell the fragrant sap as I walk between the trees, like vanilla, we always said, when there were two of us. Vanilla trees, we called them. And he was Iron Man. And I was Green Lantern. A long time ago. But nothing now was a long time ago. Everything was less than a half year ago. When I reach the road, I stop. On the other side the land rises softly for perhaps a quarter mile and then plateaus and from up there in the light of day you can see the river snaking bluely and serene and silent along the shores of the camp. But it is night now and no one can see the blue river from up there in the night. I turn back from where I stand on the side of the road. I can still see the campfire winking between the trees, a cold orange light more like something from October than August and I walk back that way, wanting warmth. About halfway, where the campsites begin, little red lava driveways marked by wooden posts bearing the number of each site, I see my father walking toward me, the light from the fire burning at the edges of his figure. He has taken off his fishing jacket and replaced it with a flannel shirt but his hat is still on his head. He is smoking his pipe. The aroma reaches my nostrils and that is how I know it is him. He comes on, looking at the ground, and we are but several paces distant when he looks up. He sees me and stops suddenly, as if he had run into a wall. Gary? he says.

Some things are too terrible to grasp at once. Sometimes the dead are more alive than the living. Sometimes, in the night, when everything is quiet and nothing quite clearly seen, the impossible seems for a moment possible. It has to be, dear God please let it be. But this is not Gary. Would that it were. This is Richard. I am Richard. Father, this is Richard, your son. And the other, the first, who you had hoped was me, will not, will never, be found again among the living. 

Some things are too terrible to grasp at once. It takes time for things to stop ending, time to sort through the ashes, and faith to find the flickering coal.