Loneliness

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey, all. December was a terribly busy month, but now I find myself with oodles of time on my hands. Thanks for being patient.

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Loneliness can be a heavy thing. Heavier than the entire world placed on your raw shoulders. It is a curious thing, how the absence of another can great such an overwhelming feeling of sadness and regret and you simply cannot fathom how you could live another day. The very act of surviving becomes a chore in isolation: breathing take more energy, the thought of cooking food is repulsive, even just getting out of bed in the morning is an insurmountable challenge. The heaviness of loneliness keeps you in bed, leaves the dishes in disarray, makes breathing painful.

But there are a select few to whom the powers of loneliness appear ineffectual. Joselyn was just one of these persons (we called her Josey for short.) I first met Josey at a very young age and even though she was two hundred twenty years my elder, I loved her.

She had never had any children of her own, though many of her relations would call themselves her children. She was quiet, proper, and never spoke out of turn. She reminded me of the woman that never made it into the history books, the sort of woman that would stay home and worry while her husband was off at war. The sort of woman that cooked family meals and clean clothes three days a week. The kind of woman that still believed in Spring Cleaning, back when there was such a thing as Spring.

However, in spite of her passivity Josey was strong. She would needed to have been to survive as long as she did. She was a widow; her husband of eighty years had died when she was at the ripe age of one hundred and seven. He was a beast of a man and knew the way of the world better than any I had known. He rose from humble beginning to command a small empire of his own and his wife had never had to want of anything, though she was blissfully ignorant of just how rich he was or how he got that way, even after his death.

I have come to believe that was the secret to Josey's happiness: blissful ignorance. And though in all aspects of her life she was compliant and submissive I think she devoted extreme energy to not knowing the world around her.

I remember, as a boy no older than thirty five Josey invited me to dine with her and her husband. She was preparing a recipe for a dinner party and I was to be the test-subject, as it were. I jumped at the opportunity as Josey was known to be a fine cook, but it wasn't until after I had arrived at her home that I realized this would be my first experience with both she and her husband together. I had met them both on separate occasions (my career-line had introduced me to Richard, her husband while my personal-line is where I met Josey).

Josey immediately embraced me upon opening the door and lead me by my hand to the dining table set with fine linen and priceless china. Richard was already seated with a napkin stuffed beneath his chin. He waved amicably for me to take a seat opposite him. The lighting was low and intimate and I became worried that this was a more formal occasion than I was prepared for. I sat with some anxiety until a divine smell wafted into my nose. The scents of chicken, spice, apple, and fine wine calmed by nervous mind and set my mouth moist with anticipation It soon became clear the level of work Josey had put into preparation: a five course dinner that was scrumptious to the senses. Richard and I sat and ate and I was so overcome by the delicious artistry that was set before me that I failed to noticed that Josey was not eating with us. Upon realizing this I exclaimed, "Richard, where is Josey? She should be enjoying this with us!"

"Josey is fine," he replied with a grin, "she will join us later."

Though this bothered me slightly my disappointment was soon relieved by the third course: a, expertly roasted whole chicken brimming with juice and flavor. The evening continued without incident, with Josey only appearing to provide more food or libation. After dinner, Richard and I retired into the sitting room to discuss the career-line and further business endeavors. Josey was not present until I began to make my departure. She appeared behind her husband and thanked me warmly for coming. I expressed my gratitude for the exquisite meal and returned to my single flat. That evening I dreamed of living with Josey and Richard, as two parents with a single child. It was a home filled with love, laughter, memory and free of longing. In the shorts hours of the evening I had lived holidays and vacations, family meals and arguments, growing up and moving out of the family which I had never known. I awoke with tears in my eyes and pain in my heart.

Less than a week later, Richard was dead. His blood health was not as good as it could have been and a sudden viral aneurism took his life in the night. There are not words that can express what Josey went through, and I am ashamed to say that I don't quite understand it myself. For several days she was silent, speaking to no one and seeking no help. But beyond those days she emerged as the same Josey everyone knew, quiet, submissive, and always willing to bestow a pleasant and caring smile.

It was almost as if Richard's death affected the whole world, but changed nothing in Josey. We had anticipated some grief, some suffering, some change in her but we found none. It was the waiting that changed us, our closeness to her that made us different. But to Josey in her blissful ignorance nothing was different. Certainly, the man she had married was gone but her happiness remained. Some have called it denial and some feel she may have succumbed to a mental malady, but I do not see it this way. For what I know, I experienced for one evening the family I had always wanted and Josey knew that life for years. The pain I felt was not for Richard's death; that hard, unfeeling man but for Josey, the woman who knew of no life apart from her husband.

As if to compound her wonderful ignorance, Josey died free of memory. Shortly before her death a routine mind exam went wrong and had nearly destroyed the electrical function of her prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. All knowledge of who she was appeared lost. In the days that followed the accident, however, she acted as though nothing had changed. She was still cooking, still cleaning, still smiling, even though she did not remember any of us.

The final time I visited her, she opened the door to her home and embraced me in the same fashion as she did before. Her kitchen was filled with the same scents and her hospitality given to me was exactly the same as when she knew who I was. I was sad but I introduced myself yet again and she welcomed me warmly into her home, insisting that I stay for dinner. It was a five course meal with excellent roast chicken. She did not dine with me.

The loneliness I experience feels heavier now that she is gone. She was not family even though my dreams would say otherwise. Behind the smile of Josey was the work of forgetting in pursuit of happiness, and I believe she ultimately got her wish. Are we any better?