Wading In The Water

Wading In The Water

It’s night, the moon is waking up, and the sun is preparing for his long nap below the horizon. Puffs of off-white clouds swim through the velvet darkness, overlapping with themselves, crossing over the light of the moon. There in the lake is a reflection of the moon, shadows dance beside it to the rhythmic chirping of the crickets, singing evening's melody.

Here you could almost smell the night, the humidity in the air, and the gentle ripple of the water as I toss pebbles across its surface, finally breaking and swallowing the little pebble whole. Fish swim away, hiding behind my silhouette on the water. And then suddenly you're beside me, taking my hand in yours as, somehow, the sun begins to rise again. It lifts off its night cap and begins to paints the sky pink.

Your hair is blowing in the wind as the sun is rising, and I can see the different colors of the sky in your blue eyes. You're somebody else right now, not the person I'm so used to being around. You're hidden in yourself, slipped behind a mask of your protected persona. And you're whispering as the trees wake up and sigh, stretching their limbs over our heads, but I cannot hear you.

You're not really there. I look down at the rippling of the water, and there is my reflection, with my tangled hair and bags under my restless eyes. Something's missing. Your reflection is missing. You are missing. Or am I missing you?

Sometimes I wonder to myself if you're really gone, for good. Sometimes I wish that, whenever I look down to reassure myself you are not here, that your reflection would be there, staring back at me from the depths of the lake. But I know I'm setting myself up for disappointment when I bend my neck downward, to see myself painted on the surface of the water, as the catfish swim away to the movement of my head.

As I wade in the water, the colorful fish dart out of my way. My hair is swept up out of my eyes, gently touching my shoulders. The sun begins to kiss the water with its light, and I can suddenly see the ground to the seemingly bottomless lake. The dirt from the bottom is trailing behind my footprints, disappearing when it settles back down, as the water calms and lies there idly. My white dress is wet from the knees down.

I stand here in the deafening silence, although it is not so quite here in the vast meadow. You can hear the Weeping Cherries bloom, as spring takes its thunderous steps towards me, bellowing with a slight warm breeze. Frogs are croaking, and trees are stretching as fish swim about. Somewhere off in the distant an animal is hidden in the rustling bushes.

But you are not here to enjoy this beauty with me. You cannot see the various shades of blue and yellow, dotted amongst the trees and grass that surround the lake. You cannot hear the dragonflies float by my head, or smell winter as it slowly walks away, being pushed out of its spot by dew and bluest of blue skies.

You are not here. You’re somewhere beyond the bluest of blue skies, walking where winter has wondered, and where summer waits patiently for its turn to play. You’re somewhere other than earth, gazing past the galaxies while passing by cows grazing on the green grasses. But you’re here, also; because I can feel your presence beside me. If I look hard enough, I can almost see you smiling back at me from the lake.

If somebody told me one day you’d be gone I wouldn’t have listened. But looking back now, there were so many signs that you wanted to leave, so many signs that I didn’t notice, due to my selfishness. Now, hearing the frogs croaking to the same rhythm the crickets were, I suddenly see my own faults in your absence. I see that maybe it wasn’t just your struggles and problems that led you to take your own life, but maybe it was my self-centeredness. I was not a good friend to you. I was not a good daughter to you.

The sun is centered in the sky, beating down on me with its heat. I can feel my skin burn under the rays, as steam slowly rises off of the water. Initially, the water was cooler, but now as the spring sun splashes in its depths it begins to heat up. It still feels good to me, but I can see the fish swim to the middle, to the deeper, cooler part of the lake.

I wade in further and find myself waist deep, in not only water, but memories. My silent reverie played images in my head, bouncing from the surface of the lake, to the trees standing tall, to the deer running free. The breeze blows again, and the trees wave at me, as if to tell me to move on. There’s nothing I can do other than stand here in the lake that you loved.

The moon joins the sun as twilight sets. From dusk ‘til dawn, ‘til dusk again, I stood here, silently wishing for your miraculous return. If only you knew how much it pained me to see my face, distorted as the water ripples to my movement. I try to stand still, but my vision blurs. I can see myself in you; I am your walking ghost. That’s all anyone ever sees when they look at me now that you are gone. You.

Wading back to the bank of the lake’s edge, I see a shadow bounce off the trees. It is my own, joining me as we reunite under the Weeping Cherry tree. I take a backward glance, over my shoulder and through the strands of my hair; I see the lake shimmering in the moonlight. My older counterpart, my love, my mother, rests in peace at the bottom of the lake.