I was commenting to my pal how sweetly the season had come and gone without tragedy or inordinate drama. I was figuring it was mostly due to choices to have a few quiet days to serve as my holiday revellry. Spent sweet and necessary time with my love and my family. Digested all the events of the past year... sat somewhat amazed at the drastic changes that had been made, some chosen and some not, some yearned for and some with regret and dismay. And of course one more evening of bittersweet memories of Carlo.
But unfortunate news has its way of finding you.
I can't say I was her close friend. As much as I was interested in her she didn't let you in very easily, but she'd let her son know you openly and enjoy his affections for you. She had the prettiest eyes sparkling out through her sorrows. You could feel the pain of her isolation when you were around her and she was always walking alone seeking in her landscape what could never be fulfilled because for some reason she wouldn't let people in there with her. The mind is a mystery that way, how it kept her from allowing what she needed most, the paranoia had built a strong fortress against the community, laughter and intimacy she so desired.
She went out to York Redoubt, left her knapsack on the cliff with a note to call her son's aunt when it was found and vanished into who knows what end. She left a very elaborate letter explaining her deed. For the sake of her son I suppose. Her body has not been found.
When I saw her last week she seemed so alone. I imagined she was missing her child. She looked a little ghostly, but then she was always pale and elflike.
So alone.
I reread the part of Carlo's goodbye poem where he described his belief that there is a time allotted for each of us and the unwritten part where if you knew him you knew he was saying that sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands.
I thought back to the time this past summer where I was sitting on her doorstep with her and her son and his father. After the boys left she laughed at a little something I said and it was the first time I had ever heard her laugh and for that little moment she looked so happy and free. laughter looked simply gorgeous on her. Crazy, for the decade I knew her that's the only memory I have of her laughter and even of talking with her for that long and eye to eye.