What Are You Thinking My Dear?

Yan Shen Drabek

Your home office. The computer you assembled is sitting quietly in front of the window. The books you neatly arranged,  categorized by subjects, are waiting for you on the wall shelves.

A sliver of sun peeking in from the half drawn curtain splashed on a hospital bed with rails on both sides, in the center of the room.

On the bed, a white sheet is covering your weak and shrinking body.

Your curly golden hair drifting on your bearded face,

Your blue eyes half open,

Your pale lips half closed.

You raised your right hand toward me –

I hold your hand –

the hand that wrote mathematical formulas and computer code on the black board,

the hand that operated radars on the mountains for the Air Force,

the hand that held chain saws to help cutting neighbor’s falling trees,

the hand that fixed our cars, painted our walls, and laid tiles on our floors –

now covered with blue veins, yet so soft, like an infant.

I hold your hand, I watch your hand, my heart is bleeding.

My dear, I am here with you. Let me hear your thoughts.

Ah, are you thinking about taking me to Ajo, Arizona to show me where you were stationed during the Vietnam War?

Ah, are you thinking about moving to Costa Rica where there is no army and education is free?

Ah, are you thinking about taking our dogs on a RV trip to the Adirondacks, and let them run leash free?

Ah, are you thinking about our first trip to the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany?

Ah, are you thinking about going to watch the Formula One race once again in Monaco, and not forgetting our tickets this time?

Yes, lets do all these tomorrow, my dear!

Right now, you need to rest. While you sleep, I will go packing. When you wake up in the morning, we will go on the road.

 

[2024-04-04: Four years ago today, the world lost a wise and honorable man. I lost my husband. The pain will never go away. I wrote this piece on March 8, in the "Writing in Proximity to History" workshop. Writing Provocation: The Site of Memory. 今天我们这里在下雪伴随着雨。好像老天爷知道今天是流泪的日子。]