Missing Pieces

Last evening as I sat at my computer scanning the words of the email my sister had forwarded to me (subject: *sigh*), trying to make sense of it all, I was suddenly struck with a familiar, faraway sensation. One minute Alli and I were singing along to Steady Fools by Korben– “We’re always foooo-oooo-ooooools, yeeeeeeeeaaaaah!!”– the next moment the noise around me was abruptly cut, sucked from the room. It seemed to blare for one split-second before pulling back into itself, somewhat inanely reminding me of the sound a television makes at the exact moment the power is cut. I was breathless.

“I’d rather have told you in person, but take a breath…” it read. Thankful for the reminder, I breathed… in… out… in… out… But the words said the same thing no matter how may times I read them: “Warren has died.”

Warren. My sister’s ex-husband. A man I had known for seventeen years, and who had been a part of our family for eleven of those. Faint voices echoed from far away, children fighting, yelling, laughing, but nothing penetrated the numbness that had suddenly taken up residence in my chest, in my heart. In the stillness, a blanket of quiet sadness pressed down around me.

Memories began to flash in my mind’s eye: College and that guy who sat by me in Honors English constantly badgering me about how many pages I wrote for my literary critique–”My paper is ten pages long, and that’s not including works cited!”– what grade I got on my essay– “Hey, Cat, what did you get? I got a ninety-six!”– or whether or not I would go out with him on Friday night– “C’mon. Why not? It’s that Dason guy, isn’t it?” That guy pulling out his hair when I got a ninety-eight percent on a paper on which he scored a mere ninety-six, because he knew for a fact that I had only just finished my essay fifteen minutes before class while he had slaved for an entire week “crafting” and “honing” his.

The memories kept coming… The guy who threw around fancy-sounding word, like fortuitous and existentialism, then sulked when I called him on wielding said words incorrectly. The guy who made friends easily… with the professors. The guy with a true gift for photography and an all-abiding love of astronomy. The guy who drove me crazy yet I couldn’t help but find his competitive streak and utter geekiness endearing in some small way.

They were coming faster. San Diego and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Tijuna. Running up and down the strip of beach outside our hotel in San Diego, well after midnight, exuberantly singing Jesus Christ Superstar with accompanying hand gestures and dance moves. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats and T.S. Elliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Cycling together. Concussed and flashing his road-rashed buttocks at a horrified TGIM. Beautiful, deep blue eyes and a permanent five-o’clock shadow. A performance of Men At Work’s classic Who Can It Be Now in the most non-intentionally hilarious operatic voice ever heard at the country-western karaoke bar in Prescott, Arizona. Family picnics, children’s births, and hours spent developing pictures and hanging out at the photo shop he and my sister owned. Uncle Warren showing my children the world from a different perspective, taking them up in his Cessna for their first airplane ride.

Then divorce. My sister broken into pieces. Pain. Tears and Anger. Regret.

My eyes pulled back into focus and I saw Alli, far away (or was she?), like a pretty dream or a pleasant movie, still dancing around the room, singing and shaking her groove thing, her golden brown curls flying as she twirled and laughed. Only seconds had passed? It felt like years.

Warren has died.

“Momma! Look! I’m lip-synching! LOOKIT, MOMMA!”

Woosh! With Alli’s voice, the clamor of family blared out, recalling me from my stupor. Tanner absolutely positively needed to get on the computer but just for a second, please, please, please?, and Hannah was off somewhere making that dying cat noise that drives us all insane.

“Mom-MA!”

I smiled at Allison, a watery smile (were those tears?). “You rock, babycakes,” I said as I carefully closed my laptop and set it aside. I closed my eyes for a second, just one second, overcome with seemingly inexplicable sadness and loss. He hurt my sister. He hurt me.

Then the memory of Warren and I dancing and singing on the beach overwhelmed me and a short, bubbly laugh burst out. My throat burned with it, but I knew I was going to remember him like that. Just like that.

And I realized at that moment how thankful I was for the scenes that came before the pain, adding to the whole, bringing it all into perspective, and I held on to the picture of Warren as he once was– antagonist, friend, brother, uncle– because even though he left us behind, killed in a plane crash at the age of thirty-eight, I knew he would always be there, woven into the tapestry of my life. In my mind and heart.

Forever.

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