Because of Loss

Have you ever known someone whose eyes can pierce through yours and see straight into your soul? Miss Hattie’s kind, dark brown eyes, surrounded by the wrinkles of life, felt safe and inviting. But, if you looked right into them, they would drill directly into your truth and pull it straight out of your mouth.

Before Miss Hattie, I had never told a patient about losing my husband and daughter in the accident. The accident. Two little words that meant in two seconds, the universe stole the only two people who meant everything to me. The accident. Our vernacular utilizes these words to describe everything from knocking over a glass of milk to an intoxicated driver taking my family at a green light. That day ripped my heart and soul from my body and only a semblance of either had returned in the last 18 months. I both loved and resented Miss Hattie for losing the tug of war with her eyes.

A microscopic piece of me had hoped for someone to share my devastation with but the greater part of me desperately wanted to keep it buried deep as I checked patients' vitals on my night shift. I was a master at keeping all conversations centered on my patients- people love to talk about themselves. But the warmth and understanding in Miss Hattie’s eyes enveloped me like my mom used to do with a towel straight from the dryer after bath time. Once I was warm and safe in her dark chocolate sea, the truth and tears came out of me one wave after another. In the months since, Miss Hattie had never asked another question about that tragic day, but the power of her eyes continued to pull more of me out of the rubble than I realized still existed.

As I walked to her room, the doctor’s words cut through my thoughts of wondering which piece Miss Hattie would resurrect in me today.

“Hattie Smith was released today into hospice care. She left this with me and made me promise to hand it to you directly,” he said with annoyance.

Not fully processing the meaning of the doctor’s words yet, I smiled inside knowing Miss Hattie’s way of getting even the most elite doctor in the hospital to bend to her words. Clearly, this hand-off was below his station but it was impossible to tell Miss Hattie no.

“Thank you, Dr. Patel” were the only words I could audibly force from my lips as the word “hospice” began screaming itself in my head.

I took the gift and hugged it to my chest as if it were Miss Hattie herself. I walked into her now-empty hospital room and sat on the empty bed with newly bleached sheets. The treatments… Did. Not. Work. Tears streamed steadily down my face as I held the book tighter. Then the intercom screeched Code Blue and my tears stopped as abruptly as they began- a necessary skill for someone who dealt daily with catastrophic loss as I did. I stood to attention, wiped my eyes with one hand, gripped Miss Hattie’s present with the other, and raced to room 303.

My body begged me for sleep when I returned to my unwelcoming apartment with its blackout curtains pulled and ready to numb me into oblivion after my twelve-hour shift. But my curiosity won as I flipped on the light, plopped onto the outdated sofa, and really examined Miss Hattie’s gift for the first time. My brow furrowed with interest as I ran my fingers over the gold printed letters that read “Journal” on the leather-bound book. Gingerly opening the cover, the first page’s preprinted title read, “In case of loss” with a line beneath it to write the owner’s name. In her calligraphic handwriting, Miss Hattie had crossed off the first two words and written the word, “Because” making the title page read, “Because of loss” and on the line below she had written, “I found joy.” As I flipped through the pages, I found Miss Hattie’s flowery handwriting filled a few pages in the beginning of the book, but most were still blank. Had she become too sick to finish? I closed the book and reopened it to the beginning and found her first entry titled, “Love.”

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Love

Love is color blind to those in love. But the eyes of our family and community were ready to be judge and jury and could see in the dark. I met my first and only true love during my last year of high school. We knew our different skin colors made an impossible barrier, but the day our fingers crossed it and interlocked; we were changed forever. Every look, every conversation, every encounter, every touch was in secret, away from disapproving eyes. And while the movies make a secret rendezvous seem steamy and romantic, our butterflies shook their wings in desperate fear of being caught.

Times have changed, at least the laws have, so this will be hard for you to fully grasp but try to imagine being loved unconditionally in a world that declared it a punishable offense. We both learned in our separate Sunday School classes that God loves all His children. Our opposite-colored preachers shared the same truth in sermons. This basic principle rang true in every part of my soul as loud as Sunday’s bell calling us to come and learn the Good Word. So why could I not be with another one of God’s children of different skin color? My family, friends, and church community would gladly accept me dating young men with blue, green, or hazel eyes, even though mine were brown. But skin color… that was different and could send me to hell?!? It’s like the whole South during my growing years ain’t got the good sense God gave a rock. Where I grew up, this absurd and prejudiced way of thinking had been etched in all souls and coded into the DNA of generations. While I was told to “Hush your mouth” when trying to raise this question on Sundays or “I’m about to fly off the handle” when I asked at home, the hypocrisy of it all became painfully real when our clandestine friendship grew into something more.

While my Tom was raised on the other side of town, in the other school, at the other church, walking around with the other skin color, we quickly became inseparable any time we could sneak off alone. Like magnets, we could not stay away, the danger of every meeting did not repel us in the least. Our intense conversations and special moments connected us, and our hearts intertwined and became unbreakable. Or so we pretended. Like my Granddaddy used to say, “That dog won’t hunt.” I reckon we both knew we had no future, but we allowed ourselves to love in looks, in moments, in dark corners. Opposite to our deep and private experience, our friends dating the same-colored peers enjoyed dances, movies, and sharing sweet teas in public while basking in praise and popularity. My heart ached to hold Tom’s hand in public, but I would not trade this trivial gesture for our treasured but hidden love.

Lightning bugs have always been magical to me and made me feel like anything is possible. So, when Tom told me I could come over when I saw lightning bugs in his favorite glass green jar on the windowsill, I thought it was a good omen. Tom was forever clever, and I was plumb excited to see his “green light” from the other side of the water on that Friday night. Tom’s parents and siblings had gone to another town after supper to visit family and would not be returning until the next day. Tom, being the eldest, was to stay home and hold down the fort in their absence. If only I had known what was to come, I would never have crossed the bridge that separated our two worlds.

I had sat at the riverbank for what felt like an eternity before seeing the faint green light shine through the trees. My parents thought I was spending the night at my friend’s to help with her ailing Mawmaw. I walked in the shadows and hid behind trees on the predetermined path from my neck of the woods to Tom’s. Crossing the bridge in the dark had its own dangers but my heart was beating out of my chest for an entirely different reason. The plan to sneak into the back of Tom’s home was almost complete, but little did I know I had two shadows. A boy in my class whose looks, notes, and invitations I had ignored, was watching me in hopes of stealing a few minutes with me on the clear, cool night.

Tom was waiting for me, and I couldn’t tell whose heart was beating louder as I searched his eyes and found desire. He pulled me into him with his strong hands and began kissing me as he never had before. We stumbled from the doorway into the house and the cool night air quickly turned to fire. Not even the hottest summer day had prepared me for this heat. Months of secret moments, stolen kisses, and trembling butterflies all melted away as the world we feared and could not be together in simply vanished. Our pounding hearts stifled the sounds of incoming footsteps. Hidden eyes widened and filled with anger and fear at the sight of our love. Everything came crashing around us and searing pain tore through my scalp as I was dragged away from Tom by my hair. Our eyes locked for the last time. The love, the desire, the fear, and the awful realization that the inevitable had come were unspoken in a flash. As the cool night punched my warm face, I saw the shattered green glass from the jar askew on the wood floor. I closed my eyes and wished to fly away with the liberated lightning bugs, unshackled and free.

I never saw Tom after that night and I do not know where his life’s path took him next. My parents sent me away to live with family in another state. Words cannot express this loss, nor can they truly describe our deep love and the joy I experienced in our short time together. I would not exchange my time with Tom for anything in this world. Every night when I close my eyes, I see his. This cruel world banned him from being mine, but it cannot erase our time or love. I have been happy since, but Tom taught me true joy. Because of loss, I learned joy.

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I blinked back the tears as I realized the next page in Miss Hattie’s fancy handwriting was a note to me:

Dear Friend,

This is just one of my lost and found stories. The greater the gift, the deeper the loss. Loss is real. Loss is painful. But do not let grief steal from your heart and mind all you once had. Do not let pain swallow life’s gifts. Those gifts are yours. Ponder this question: Because of loss, what have you found? Fill the blank pages with your story and I promise you will find joy again. Write about your daughter’s laugh, your husband’s embrace. Do not let the green light on that fateful day take your family from your heart, too. Your memories and love are yours forever. As I near leaving this world to go to a better one, I pray you find joy in your loss and live your life with love every day.

Forever Yours,

Miss Hattie