Mr. Tyson gave the go–ahead for me to attend the graduation ceremony and receive a diploma, but I didn’t really graduate.There would be summer school classes to take. The ceremony had a kind of slo–mo, underwater feeling to it all. I was there but not there. I wondered if this was the way my life was going to play out.There but not there. Graduating but not really graduating. Living but not really alive.
They let Nicole give a little speech about Lisa and I had prepared myself for that. I faded deep into myself. I know my parents fought hard to hold back tears. Lisa’s folks were not in the audience.And Miranda. Nobody was saying a word about her. There would be no graduation ceremony for Miranda.
My name was called and my feet felt heavy as I clumped up to the stage and shook hands with Mr. Tyson.You watch the others go up before you and you know your turn is coming but when you actually hear your name, it all feels so strange. Who is this person walking up to receive his high school diploma? Wasn’t I just a little kid on a tricycle not so long ago? Wasn’t I still pissing in my pants and blubbering when I fell and scraped a knee?
I almost thought Mr.Tyson was going to give me a hug. I didn’t want that so maybe he caught my signal. Or maybe he knew it was better not to draw too much attention to me. The document was handed over, the applause faded, and I was off the stage.Wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
Phyllis was there with my parents, her oxygen tank in tow. It was a sad scene. She was fading. When I visited her, she kept prepping me for what was ahead. “I’m on borrowed time, as they say,” she kept reminding me.And she meant it.
Louis was in the audience as well. I had invited him. He had been teaching me to cook. I knew a bit about herbs and spices. And I could make pasta from scratch. After the ceremony, he found me and shook my hand enthusiastically. He saw the deer–in–the–headlights look on my face and tried to coach me back into normality. “You’re going to do just fine, son. Keep a level head and keep your feet on the ground. Now I gotta get back to work.” And he left.
Nicole found me in the parking lot and took my hand, then wrapped her arms around me and hugged me to her.
Nicole.
I need to tell you about Nicole.
It was nothing like Miranda. And it was not like Lisa. We were friends. Sad friends who had shared a loss. Nicole had helped me adjust to school and ran interference—sometimes when I didn’t even realize it—steering me away from trouble that was looking for me. We studied together and sometimes we kissed. Sometimes we’d go for long walks or we’d run together. I had to force myself to run but I always felt a little better while I was doing it. We’d run to the river and sometimes just sit there on the grass. We’d make out but I never let it get beyond the basics. Everything about sex and sexual attraction scared me. I explained that to Nicole and she understood.
The night of graduation, Nicole and I didn’t go to any of the parties. I wasn’t really invited to any but she was. I suppose we could have shown up together but I didn’t want to go. Nicole’s parents surprised me by saying that I could stay the night—the two of us would stay in the living room. Maybe they thought this was the safest of all the options. They didn’t mean that I was to sleep with their daughter. But they were okay if I slept there that night.
We split a bottle of wine and her parents didn’t even seem to mind that. We watched a couple of Jack Nicholson DVDs—As Good as it Gets and Something’s Gotta Give. And after everything got quiet in the house, I kissed her and held her to me. “I feel like I need you in my life,” I said, “but I don’t want to hold you back.”
“I haven’t decided which university I’m going to yet. I may not be going away after all.”
“I think you should.”
“You want me to?”
“It’s not like that. I want you here. But I can’t make you do that.”
My summer was summer school. My teachers, I am sure, had been given instructions to make sure I made up the work I’d missed so my graduation would be legitimized. They all knew it would be best if I were not around the school for any part of another school year. Lisa’s death and the whole sorry story that surrounded it would not be forgotten, but it would be a thing of the past.
I almost gave up on summer school when my grandmother died. I almost gave up on everything.
Phyllis was having a harder and harder time breathing. She was back in the hospital and taking heavy medication to help her heart and to keep her blood thin. My dad went to stay with her for hours every single night. My mom would go see her at least once during the day. I preferred to visit her on my own and sometimes she was too tired to talk. She would look at me, though, and hold my hand. I’d randomly turn to a page in her I Ching book and read.
“Hexagram 38 K’uei: Whatever is lost will return when the time is right. Remaining open to that possibility is the key. Hexagram 49 Ko: Hold steadfast to the middle way. Don’t attempt too much change too soon.”
And then she got better. Or so it seemed. Phyllis returned home and I went there every day after school. One day she seemed almost as energetic as before. She could take off the mask for a twenty–minute conversation.
“I wish my father were here,” she said out of the blue. She pointed to the shelves of books that ran floor to ceiling. “He was a professor of literature. He gave me the love of books—much like yours—the desire to read anything, far and wide. He slept in chairs, a book in his lap. I didn’t know that was an odd thing. I thought all fathers did it. I don’t think he slept with my mother very often. In the morning, I’d find him asleep in his reading chair and I’d wake him up. And he would thank me.”
Then Phyllis talked about her husband who had died, a subject she had been strangely silent on over the years.
“Your grandfather loved me but he never understood me. I don’t think I married him out of love. I married him out of need. I wanted to move away from home. I wanted the life I saw others had. He was kind and dependable. I broke his heart many times. He didn’t understand why I did the things I did. Neither did I.”
She showed me a photo of him. In it, he was young—twenty–something—and he looked nervous and uncertain. Possibly even scared. “I look a little like him, don’t I?” I asked.
“Yes.” She nodded.
“How did you two meet?”
“It was a blind date.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Friends set us up. I didn’t expect it to work.”
“But you were open to the possibilities.”
She looked at his photo and then back at me. “I wasn’t sure I really loved him until he died. And then I realized how deeply I felt. Isn’t that a great pity?”
I handed her back the photo and she placed it on the table beside her.
“Life is all about change. We cling to what we know and what we have, and then we lose it, and then we regret not having it and try to replace it by finding and clinging to something else.”
“Which hexagram is that?”
“Hexagram Phyllis. The hard part is learning how to lose what you love gracefully and move on. To avoid letting the loss stop you in your tracks.”
“I haven’t really been able to let go of Lisa. Why is that?”
“Because of the way you lost her. Because you cared deeply.”
“Why did I not want to read her journals?”
“I think because you knew that it would bring her memory more alive in you. It would put her back in the middle of your life and some part of you knows you have to move on. Remember that poem of hers you read?”
“Sure.”
“That was her saying goodbye to you. But you never had the opportunity to say goodbye to her.”
“Did you get to say goodbye to my grandfather?”
“Yes. He was sick for a while and then I realized he wanted me to give him permission to let go.”
“And you did that?”
“I did it for him. I told him I would be okay. I told him he could go. Sometimes people hang on for others.”
I saw the tiredness in her now. I understood what she was saying and knew that it took quite a bit of her strength to say this to me. I was supposed to say something. I was supposed to give her permission to die. But I couldn’t do it.
“But you’re getting better, right? Today you seem much healthier. Is it the new medication?”
She shrugged and pulled me to her. “The doctors seem to think I’m one for the record books. Should have been dead long ago. But look at me. Still kicking.”
Phyllis died that night in her sleep. She had held on as long as she could, I suppose. I regretted not giving her the comfort she wanted, the permission. And I hoped she would forgive me, wherever she went to. I viewed her casket but did not go the funeral. Instead, I stayed home and read from a pile of books she had given me.
And in the morning, I went back to my classes at summer school. That was the best I could do to let her know that I was going to be okay without her, that I’d find others to help me sort out the painful threads of my life. And that I understood that life is about change, it is a book of changes, a book detailing what we find, what we cling to, and what we lose. And then, for those who learn how, we move on.