I sensed my father beside me. My father who died when I was fourteen years old. I knew I should follow him, allow him to lead me somewhere, but I didn’t want to go, didn’t trust that this experience wasn’t just part of a dream. He stood smiling, his hands held behind his back, barefoot, still dressed in his Rolling Stones t-shirt and khaki shorts.
It was strange seeing him, the same age as me, his curly dark hair disheveled, the same scar across his forehead from a teenaged bicycle accident, his wedding ring still prominent on his left ring finger. Dead at thirty-nine, I was the same age as my father was when he died. I had always thought of him as being older, the way a kid thinks of his dad, in that nonage sort of way. He looked youthful, boyish, younger than I did, with his dark shaggy hair and long pork chop sideburns in that consummate 70s retro look. The human me would have laughed or cried, given him a hug, or perhaps a punch in the arm for dying on me. But I was not myself. He too seemed different. No high fives, no whoops, no knuckle bumps. His self-possessed, steady calm and that knowing half-smile contrasted with the jumpiness I felt from the sensation of being outside my own body.
My dead body continued to bob lifelessly as a Coast Guard diver made a valiant effort to release me from the car. He floated up to the surface and shook his head. The futility was obvious. I felt a momentary impulse to leap back into the water, swim toward my body and climb back inside its limp form. My being seemed large outside the confines of my body, newly unfurled from its prison. I laughed unexpectedly. I could hardly imagine why I might laugh at the sight of my own dead body, but my weightlessness in the absence of my body had me feeling giddy, on the verge of hysteria – the way a kid might feel being thrown up in the air by an adult – at once exhilarated and terrified. I’m too young. I still have so much to do! I’m not ready! Let me go back! I will be a better person!
How many times had I cursed my father for dying young? Now I had done something equally stupid and careless, maybe more so. Maya. Oh Maya. I love you so much! I didn’t mean to leave you. And Calder. Will you ever forgive me for dying on you?
I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead. Aren’t I?
Yes, Jay, you are.
My father reassured me of my deadness. With my dad’s confirmation, I felt my panic dissipate, replaced with an excited yet peaceful sensation. I sensed a duality within this new me – the panic of losing my body, and also the exhilaration of being released from it. I experienced a more distant feeling of calmness, that everything was happening as it should. I had no volume, mass, velocity, or any other physical attribute. I did not exist physically in space because a physical location no longer had meaning. I could float while Earth spun on its axis around the Sun, so that my relative position to Earth remained unchanged. My soul, even outside my body, maintained its identity as “Jay”, though I didn’t know how without any brain input. I had no concept of time, felt no pain. I felt sorry for my prone body, now a stranger.
I thought of the things in my life that now would never be – the second kid we had vaguely planned on having, the romantic weekend that Maya had been bugging me about, working out more, climbing Mount Rainier, jamming with Calder. Instead I’d made Maya a single mother to a seven-year-old boy. Only seven. Shit. He still had so much life to live and now he would have to do it without a father. I knew how hard that would be for him. Who would cheer him at his first little league game this summer? Who would kick his butt when he became a grunting teenager, or see him stand at an altar on his wedding day? I’d looked forward to nurturing Calder's musical abilities, his drumming, something I knew Maya had no interest in. The kid had talent and I was determined to help him discover it. How would I do that now? Damn it, I totally blew it. I thought of my mother, who would now be completely alone, her husband and her only son having abandoned her too young. I thought of never being able to taste chocolate ice cream again, or a drippy peach. Feel the sun on my face, the wind in my hair. I acknowledged these facts with a sad desperation, still hovering near my body in case it might come back to life. I imagined a rescuer suddenly diving into the water, hauling my dead weight back to the surface, rolling me up onto the rocky shore, and pumping my chest until I spewed up sea water. Might I suddenly open my eyes and laugh at my own dumb luck for still being alive, claiming to have seen a bright light and a tunnel? A small glimmer of hope for a life I knew could no longer be. I looked over at an actual bright light and a tunnel, and wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. I was gently tugged toward that light, almost against my will. I felt an overwhelming desire to go that I resisted with everything I had. Strange to long for both life and death at the same time.
The diver found my wallet and an officer called our home in Seattle, where Maya was wise enough to leave her cell phone number on the voice mail message. They called the cell phone and left a message. Time passed, and the divers suspended their recovery efforts until the following morning. They decided to haul the entire car onto a barge with a crane, a difficult maneuver that I looked forward to witnessing.
From my post near my body, I longed to be with Maya when she received the news of my death. With that thought I arrived at Maya's sister Bethany’s condo in Whistler. But I could still see my body trapped beneath the waves. I didn’t know how this could be and felt as if I had split myself in two.
I watched as Maya turned on her phone to check messages, saw her listen to the message left by the RCMP, saw the color drain from her face. Bethany walked in and, looking quizzical, mouthed, “What’s wrong?” Maya shook her head and continued to listen to the end of the message, her hands shaking. She dropped her hands, still holding the phone limply.
“That was the Lion’s Bay police. They want me to call. There’s been an accident on the Sea to Sky Highway.”
“An accident? Who?”
“I can only assume it’s Jay, since they’re calling me, but why would he be there? He said he wasn’t coming.”
Maya redialed the number on her phone.
“No,” she whispered in response to what she was told. “No! He didn’t come skiing. It’s not him. You’ve made a mistake. He wanted a quiet weekend. It’s not him. How can you even be sure it’s him?” Bethany had her arm around Maya as she listened with tears streaming down her cheeks. Maya nodded her head without speaking, eyes wide, mouth slack, before she slid slowly down the lemony yellow kitchen wall until her bum reached the floor and she could slide no farther, her knees sticking up, her feet sunk into the goofy pink fluffy slippers her sister had given her for Christmas. The cell phone slipped from her hand onto the floor unnoticed. I longed to hold her in my arms, touch her smooth skin. I wished I could tell her one last time how much I loved her.
Later, I sat with Calder and Maya on Bethany’s guest bed. Maya held a box of tissues on her lap, her shaking hands grasping it from either side, as if it were a shoe box containing a tiny fragile bird like the one that Calder had once rescued, that Maya had desperately yet unsuccessfully tried to nurse back to life with a medicine dropper.
“Calder, there’s been an accident,” Maya said. Calder looked up from his Gameboy.
“What kind of accident?”
“It’s your dad. He’s been in a car accident.”
“Is he in the hospital? Do we have to go see him now?” Calder sounded panicked. Maya could only shake her head through her unending tears, making a sawing noise as she pulled a tissue slowly out of the box, quickly dabbing her chin to catch another falling tear.
“Is he.... Is he... dead?”
Maya cried harder and leaned over to hug him.
“Daddy’s dead?”
Maya nodded, still holding him in an embrace. “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she whispered.
“Maybe he’s just in space,” Calder said. She smiled faintly at his upturned, hopeful face.
“No, Calder, he’s in heaven. We can’t see him anymore.” I’m here, I’m right here.
“When he gets back from heaven, can we all
go and get ice cream?”
Absolutely! Was it just last night that I had been such an asshole to him?
“Is Daddy still mad at me?”
Oh Calder, No. I’m sorry about last night. Please don’t remember me that way. Calder cried loudly now.
“He needs to come back! Daddy, come back now!” Calder looked directly at me.
I want to Calder, I really do.
“I’m so sorry, Cald, he can’t. But he loves... loved you very much.” Calder seemed better able to sense me – perhaps children are naturally more psychic – making the permanence of my death incomprehensible to him. I touched Calder's shoulder lightly, making him shiver, frustrated that I couldn’t take him into my arms. I kissed Maya's cheek, wanting nothing more than to feel its warmth, to look into her eyes one more time. To have her looking back into mine.
I told you you were going to die! You didn’t believe me. Calder's thought was clear.
You’re right, Buddy. I didn’t really understand. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.
***
Maya and I never discussed our wishes for funeral arrangements. It never occurred to us that one of us could die so soon, despite my own father’s death at a young age. I suppose in my own denial of death, the act of planning my own funeral seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy. No way this Cavor would die young.
My father had been cremated, and his urn sat for years on the ornate mantle that my mother had bought at an antiques fair and stripped of its hideous green paint. I loathed the idea of an open casket – over-rouged cheeks, waxy coral lips, hands folded over the person’s chest, like a macabre wax museum display. Maya, I felt, was of the same mind. Closed casket then, if she went the funeral route. But then what? A funeral home? A church? We never frequented such places. I couldn’t imagine Maya trying to choose a coffin for me, the types of wood, the color of the satin lining. Laughable. No surprise when she opted for cremation. Clean, neat, compact. The cardboard coffin was included in the price.
Days on Earth passed and I floated in a sort of no-man’s land. The tunnel and its light continued to beckon; I continued to resist. I visited my body the moment before the box containing it was hoisted onto the sleek, stainless table, built to slide into a square door where I would be reduced to dust, baked at 1700 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours until I was the consistency of ash with bits of bone mixed in. I watched as the flames engulfed the box, imagined the smell as acrid, one of burning hair and flesh. I wondered why I felt so little emotion at the incineration of my body.
***
Maya and a group of people stood on the bow of a boat, a yacht really, under a rare, clear March Seattle sky, a jaundiced eyeball of a full moon witnessing it all. The salt breeze pushed a wisp of Maya's hair away from her face and she pulled her long black wool coat tighter around her shoulders. Calder stood next to her, wearing his camouflage snowboarding jacket, whining.
“When can we go? I want to go home. I’m cold.”
“I know sweetie, but I’m going to need your help sprinkling Daddy’s ashes on the water. But let’s go inside now and get warmed up first.”
Inside the large cabin, a group of our friends and family were sitting in white plastic folding chairs that had been lined up in rows across the parquet wood dance floor, under a mirrored disco ball. My mother sat in the front row, knees clenching her hands between them, back slightly hunched, looking straight ahead. Her whole body appeared to be glowing, shoots of coloured light emanating from her torso. Muddy grays, yellows, and blues swirled around her and seemed to morph into warmer shades of pink and orange when I sat beside her. My own light blended with hers in tiny arcs between us. I realized that everyone in the room had similar rings of colour enveloping their forms, something I vaguely understood to be auras. I realized I could now see the vibrations of atoms, electrons, particles of every object in the universe. Even thoughts had auras.
Around the room a broad spectrum of electromagnetic radiation – microwaves, infrared light, and UV light flickered and danced like the flames of a candle near an open window in response to the energy emitted through people’s auras. This light energy seemed concentrated around electrical outlets and light fixtures but also around those who seemed to be grieving most – Maya, Calder, and my mother - because their auras appeared to radiate more energy than everyone else’s.
My mother shivered in response to my presence and turned toward me, as though about to address me, but then she looked through me.
I love you, Mom. I’m sorry. I know how hard this is, but I will see you again soon. I felt myself fill with love of her, and together we became surrounded by a now familiar white light. She seemed to physically relax, her shoulders slumped slightly, and I noticed a tear rolling down her cheek.
Damn you! I jumped. I heard her thought as if she had slapped me across the face. First your father and now you. What kind of cruel world is this?
I’m sorry, Mom. I am so sorry.
I drifted away from her, shut out by her sorrow.
Maya and Calder, their coats flung on nearby chairs and cheeks rosy from being outside, stood now in a group with her parents. Maya wore a black turtleneck over a tight-fitting pink dress, something I loved seeing her in but that she rarely wore. I knew she wore it to my funeral especially for me, despite it being socially inappropriate in the way it pulled tight over the roundness of her beautiful ass, creating a sensuality out of place in the roomful of black suits. Her hair pulled back off her pale face, eyes red-rimmed and swollen and her lips lush and pink, beautiful even in grief, she gripped her glass of wine, whose blood-colored surface rippled with each tear that clung to her cheek before launching itself into the abyss.
Stone-faced, Maya rebuffed her mother, Estelle, when she tried to put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. I reached out in a habitual way to take Maya into my arms, to comfort her in a way I hadn’t done, I suddenly realized, for too long. I wanted desperately to put my arms around her, to calm her, but without my body I was as successful at hugging her as a double amputee might be. Our auras linked, though she seemed oblivious. I sensed a purpose for my death, in both my life and hers, but it angered me to try to account for something so meaningless, unwilling to forgive my own stupidity.
Calder was tired and cranky, a seven-year-old teetering on the edge of a meltdown. Without trying to, I surrounded us all, wishing to be a whole family again, which transformed the yellowish ambient light of the dim room to a glowing spotlight. Calder sighed and seemed calmer for the moment.
And then I saw Marcus Pellegrino. He sat drinking a scotch in a seat in a corner, far away from everyone. His presence at my funeral surprised me. Had Maya invited him? I saw her look at him from across the room and then quickly look away, but couldn’t tell from her expression if she too was surprised by his presence or expecting it. He wore a black wool coat and sat erect at the bar, talking to no one. His greying hair slicked back, he wore a heavy, expensive watch and polished Italian shoes. Marcus looked every bit the rich prick. Despite his obvious effort trying to make eye contact with Maya, she seemed to want nothing to do with him.
Distracted by feedback from a microphone, a sound that looked to me like transparent ripples fanning away from the mic, I lost interest in Marcus. Funerals were not called funerals anymore. This was a “Celebration of Life”. I tried to think of things that could be celebrated about my life. Maya, Calder, yes. They were both reasons to celebrate. But had I been a good husband, a good father? I’d been focused on my job, took pride in each promotion, earned increasing amounts of money, but spent more and more time at the office, on the road. I spent more time with a bunch of twenty-something programmers than with my own family. I felt young with my employees, like an older brother, going out for watery beer and doughy pizza after a long day, feeling guilty afterward arriving home long past Calder's bed time. I had wanted to live that carefree young man’s life again –
no responsibility, no mortgage, no one waiting for me at the end of the day.
Jake and Miles now stood together, each holding the neck of a long brown bottle of Red Hook, watching a slide show of photographs, a window into their boss’s life, a world they had never experienced in the time they knew me. A soundtrack accompanied the photos – Stevie Ray Vaughn, Steely Dan, Stones. My baby pictures flashed across the screen accompanied by Stevie Ray’s “Little Baby”. School pictures, ridiculous photos of friends and family, early shots of a teenaged Maya at her cottage. She was wearing a bikini, waving from the dock, me poised behind her, about to push her in, causing her to lose her top, much to the embarrassment of us both, but funny years later. I had sleepwalked through my whole life, waking up now as a dead man.
Maya moved some of the folding chairs from the front rows so she could sit on the floor with Calder on her lap. A couple of other small children came and sat down next to them, instinctively trying to comfort in that natural way the adults seemed to have forgotten.
Rob, my best friend from high school who had flown in from Toronto, stood up after the slide show, taking charge.
“I just want to say a few words.” Tiny lines crept around his smiling brown eyes. His once thick dark hair was now white and wiry, and a slight paunch stretched the buttons of his suit jacket. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Rob, and the changes surprised me.
“I honestly can’t believe I’m standing here. I can’t believe Jay’s gone. Shit, man. He was way too young.” The room remained silent. “I can’t help thinking about this time in grade ten at Jarvis. The shit... oh sorry... I mean the crap–” laughter poured from the audience “–that we got into! Jay never used to eat the sandwiches he brought from home. Instead, he would stuff them into his locker so he could ‘grow mold’. The various types of mold that grew on those sandwiches did fascinate me, but I enjoyed the laughs too. The smell by the end of the year stank up the entire hallway!” More laughter. “He wanted to be a geneticist back then, before he got into that computer stuff. I figured he would discover the cure for cancer or something. I don’t really know when he got into the software world.”I did want to be a geneticist. I volunteered at a lab at the University of Toronto when still in high school and loved it, but when I got to University I learned how much political posturing went on in the profession at the academic level, it turned me off. I took some computer science classes and eventually found myself in Seattle working at Microsoft. Rob told the audience about my jazz band and how I got all the girls, which wasn’t exactly true.
Remember The Moon Page 4
