There is always an after.
I realized that sometime as a teenager, contemplating a big trip or a big holiday or a big…something. Whatever it was, it is now lost to memory. What I do remember is sitting on the cusp of this thing and suddenly thinking, “then it will be over.” I tried to imagine myself on the other side, looking not forward but rather back, not at a shimmering, half-formed vision of the future, but rather at some solid thing growing smaller and smaller, like a train station receding at the narrowed end of a lengthening track.
Now, it is after.
The whirlwind of things to be done: get the job, start the job, pack, move, sell the house, plan the wedding, have the wedding, all of it is over, and I am sitting on the couch on a Sunday evening, half wishing the train would slow to let me look a little longer, half desiring to run to the very first car and peer out the window at the mountains on the next horizon.
I know, I know — I’m supposed to “live in the now,” and I am, I promise. I feel the cat in my lap and Pete’s jealous paw scratching my elbow. Just now, I turned to look at him, aggrieved and astonished that I would reject his affections for some inferior feline. I am here, now, but also —
— but also, having seen two parents lose to memory not just one thing, but one thing after another and another and another, having seen my father’s world so narrow at the end that even the mountains on the horizon could not rouse him —having seen these things, I’ve come to believe that it is a gift to be able to look forward and also, especially, back.
So indulge me a moment. Two-hundred words more, maybe fewer. Let me look back.
I forgot to smile walking down aisle, until I got to the third pew, and Don’s mother said, “You could smile!” and I thought, “Oh! Right! I could!” and I did.
Don was wearing a blue suit with a bright orange tie that I loved, and we stood together and listened to a young woman sing two of his favorite songs, and I didn’t care that a hundred-some people were watching me.
My nephew read a poem I wrote, one of my favorites, that I read to myself when I’m sad or missing home.
We served communion, Don and I, saying over and over again, “The blood of Christ shed for you.”
My mother, who has not yet lost everything, took the cup from my hands and whispered, “Amen.”
I did not realize that “releasing the guests pew by pew” meant that I would hug every living human in the sanctuary, but I didn’t mind.
There was dinner by candlelight, music, speeches, laughter, and I was very, very happy.
And now it is after.
Tomorrow, I’ll contemplate mountains. But for tonight, let me look back.
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