Just One Lifetime
A beautiful woman - ghastly and fading, wearing a night gown with hair rollers within her greying hair - stood in Willie’s room. She climbed into their bed, as she had time and time again, lying atop their plaid, olive green, linen bed sheets. She turned on her side next to him to inspecting him closer. They laid chatting as they had done day after day. Her smile and laugher enunciating her wrinkles and smile lines: engraved, aging happiness. They talked of fond memories, seeing their children grow into adults, their scrawny white puppy grow old alongside them, and all of the ways in which their life had played out right next together. “I remember our wedding. I danced so much my feet were sore for a full week,” letting out a soft giggle. “We had sooo much chocolate cake. Remember when we went to dinner together for the first time?” Adele continued, bringing up more memories. Some distant, some recent. But tonight, when Willie reached for her hand, all he could feel was the cold, empty bed, lacking of her presence, her warmth. But Adele’s expression became a sudden tender sadness as he reached for her hand; her eyes pinched and watering. “Oh Willie,” she said tearfully. “They haven’t told you yet? I’m not here anymore.”
“What do you mean?” His gruff voice asked aloud. Though he couldn’t comprehend it yet, the room was empty. Adele had passed away the day before.
“I’m not here anymore,” she repeated. Placing her hand on his chest. Though she could feel him: the warmth of his chest and everlasting love, he couldn’t feel her. “I’m in the sky now. It’s beautiful up here. You would love it.” He tried placing his hand atop hers, resulting in the clutching of his heart. Tears pricked his eyes.
She was a candle, now void of flame after burning brightly for years. Bringing warmth, comfort, light to anyone near it. He was one flickering delicately, as if the wind was attempting to blow out the flame but it’s own will kept it burning.
“I miss you so much,” she said, “I was thinking about that one night when we danced to our song? The moon was out and there were all of these lights! Do you remember? It wasn’t too long ago. It was just before I started using my wheelchair.” She started to hum the intro of the song before singing the beginning lyrics:
“Just one lifetime. Of loving you, honey,. Won’t be long enough,” she started to sing the beginning of the J Blackfoot tune to him, soothing the ache of her absence. “If the beat of my heart shall suddenly stop. My love will take on. Just like the clock.”
Though he couldn’t feel it, she kissed his cheek as he closed his eyes. Further on into the song: “Seasons may come and seasons may go. I'm with you come rain, shine, sleet, or snow. I’ll love you till all the rivers turned dry. My loving turned to dust.”
“I remember,” Willie felt himself respond as he drifting to sleep at the sound of her raspy, soft singing of the song the two of them slow danced to time and time again over the years as they aged.
As he slept the rest of the song was a soft lullaby that his soul sang along to, “You are my breath. You’re the beat of my heart. My soul and my strength. Honey, that’s what you are.”
For nearly two weeks, Willie had been in the hospital, void of his wife’s presence, and Valentine’s Day was quickly approaching. His son visited him. “Dad,” he started, solemn and nervous. “I have to tell you something.” He took a seat next to the ICU hospital bed, the machine tracking Willie’s heartbeat softly beeping.
“It’s ok, son.” Willie said, “She already told me.”
“Momma?”
Willie responded with a slight nod. This would be Willie’s first time — in almost six decades — spending Valentine’s Day alone. He couldn’t quite remember the rest of the conversation with his son, before his thoughts drifted away to the sound of soft sorrow in his son’s voice. The ache of missing her slowly becoming wallowing and unbearable.
On February 13, as Adele’s casket was lowered into the ground, Willie was dreaming. Dreaming of her.
Memory after memory, his mind raced through flashes of her glistening smile and soft laughter. Her enthusiasm for everyday, her steady love, her whip-smart comments and conversation. In the dream he laughed at her wit, smiled helplessly at her laughter. In a flash, she stood the kitchen of the small home they lived in singing as she baked a German chocolate cake, then at a family function dancing - even when restrained to a wheelchair, then giggling at his softly spoken jokes in the middle of early morning the two of them completely under the cover, then her holding their newborn daughter, hugging her as she graduated high school. Flashes of her doing the same to their three other daughters. Her watching him and their son playing around the yard. Her holding his hand in the night. Each memory — once engraved deeply into his being — blurry, as if disappearing slowly.
He dreamed of the very life he lived by her side in a small Opelousas home, the sun rising dreamily, streaming into their room in the early morning. The two of them going about their morning routine as birds chirped outside their windows. Then him joining her at the tablecloth covered table, two bowls of grits steaming, a plate of bacon, the two of them eating still dreary from sleep. In a flash they were sitting side by side at family crawfish boils, then eating crabs with distant family in their own dining room, and sitting in their living room on a black leather couch nuzzled together watching the evening news. Then he saw her holding their puppy while still in her night gown standing and murmuring sweetly too it, the same puppy napping in her lap as she sat in her wheelchair.
She was his forever lover. The woman that kept him waking up happy every morning, even when they bickered. A match to his soul; a soul complete on its own but without its match, tired and lonely. She was his wife in every lifetime. His eternal dance partner. He was sure of it. For a moment he saw nothing, a conclusive black.
Then.
He was standing in the night, looking at a patio surrounded by fluttering lights, a gorgeous woman standing in the center, the moonlight grazing her hair which was slightly curly, the shades of her beautiful brown eyes fractured and gleaming in the light. The night was moving closer and closer to midnight, to a new day. Specifically, the eve of a day proclaimed for love. He hadn’t realized how long he’d been within this beautiful dream. A dream he wished he could stay in for awhile longer.
Adele was in the center of the patio, dancing barefoot, a familiar song playing as the moon shone brightly atop this sweet memory that felt too real to be the conjuring of his brain. She slowly rocked side to side to the beat of the music as if waiting for her partner to join her under the lights, the soft tune — like wind — breezing around Willie, pulling him slowly towards her. He took multiple steps to get to her, the crack of leaves and branches under his feet alerting her of his presence. He stepped onto the concrete ground of the patio.
She smiled at him, one of booming intensity filled with genuine, vulnerable joy.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said hopefully, her moonlit gaze sparkling, her hand reaching out to him. His mind recalled her doing the exact same gesture time and time again, beckoning him to dance with her at nearly every function they went to. He stared at her outstretched arm for a beat before hesitantly grasping her hand, afraid she would disappear. Afraid the memory would shatter, disappear, and morph into a deep black and he would be left on the patio. Void of her presence for another day. Instead, his hand held hers. The warmth sending gentle shivers down his arm. It had been only a couple of days since they last held hands, but he felt as though he forgot how it felt. Her hand fit snuggly into his and she pulled him in to a slow twirl and they danced lowly, languidly, throughout the entirety of the song. I’ll love you till all the rivers run dry. Till the sun and the moon fall from the sky. Just one lifetime of loving you, honey. Won’t be long enough. She nestled to his neck as the song finished it’s nostalgic melody. Their hold on each other strong and comforting. A slight breeze blowing out the flame of a flickering light. With the moon starting to set and the sun slowly rising, the pair twirled and twirled, swayed, and dipped to music unheard by anyone other than them.
Willie passed away peacefully in his sleep. The beep of the heart monitor dragged out and alerted the nurses of a life well-lived and a person entering eternal rest.
Atop the Catholic Church sat two red cardinals, one fluttering her feathers, nestling under the other’s chin. The other chirping silently to itself, as if in a prayer of thanks. Murmuring softly over and over to himself while nuzzling the other. A car — a quite large, red SUV — left the church about an hour and a half later, mindlessly streaming the beginning of a beloved love song. The lyrics quietly poured out the car window as it whizzed down the street.
Just one lifetime. Of loving you, honey…
“This is a song Aunt Adele and Uncle Wille loved,” my dad told us as he played the song for us on the car’s aux as we left the church. We walked into the restaurant. We had just left Aunt Adele’s funeral and stopped by a hole-in-the-wall diner to eat a meal before heading home for the evening. We ordered our food and sat down. After saying grace, my dad’s phone rang.
“Pick!” My dad answered the phone excitedly, with his nickname for cousin Willie. He sat silently and pensive as the man on the line rambled off information. “What?! Don’t tell me that, man,” he said quickly scrambling out of the restaurant. Eyes, mine included, followed him. My brother and I shared a confused look. We hesitantly started eating our food. I picked up my chicken sandwich and had a few bites. Dad walked in a few minutes later “Well, gang, we’ll be coming back next Saturday,” he said running a hand down his face. The other holding the phone, now black from an ended call.
“Uncle Wille just passed.”
Writer’s Note: This piece is based on the true story of my aunt Adele and uncle Willie Pickens. Adele was buried on February 13, 2021, the same day Willie passed away. Days before, he told his son that Adele visited him to tell him she died. Some of the story has been altered such as description and dialogue because of memory purposes. Parts of their love story I do not know because of my age at the time of frequently visiting the couple. However, the names and the overall premise of the story are true and important fragments of the story were told to me by family members.
I hope their story gives you as much hope for love as it gave me.
Written with much love for Adele and Willie Pickens as well as their living family.
Yulani S