Your Song Page 6

  I shut down my computer, take my iPad with me and go to sleep.

  5 “Seasons In The Sun”

  To these lyrics in my head I wake up on this sunny Sunday morning in June. The third anniversary of Danny’s death. If ever there was a song written for someone, Terry Jack’s ‘Seasons in the Sun’ has my name written all over it. A few months after Danny died, I walked into my parents’ place one day and this song was playing in the background. It stopped me in my tracks.

  Out of bed now, I make my way over to my answering machine and hit the rewind button.

  Beep.

  “Hey Eric, it’s me. I tried reaching you on your cell but it must be turned off. The tux place called . . . our tuxes will be ready on Thursday . . . I’ll pick up yours when I go get mine. See you Thursday night at the rehearsal dinner. Talk to you later. Beep.”

  I never did talk to Danny later. He died the next day. This recording is all I have left of him. I play it over and over again every year on the anniversary of his death. But only on June 3rd can I brace myself for the pain of listening to his voice on my machine. Maybe that’s why I’m so attached to my answering machine? A way to hold onto Danny and our history.

  I listen to the message again. He sounds so alive and with us. I tremble inside as I hear the closeness of his voice. He should be here, with us. How could he be gone? How does someone leave you an ordinary everyday message on your answering machine one day and then hours later that person no longer exists? Where did that light-up-the-room smile of his go? And what about that mischievous laugh of his that I heard a million times, where did it disappear?

  For the longest time after he died, I used to believe his death was a just a terrible joke he was playing on all of us and that any minute, he’d be walking through the door with that ‘gotcha’ look in his eye. I remember those first few months after he died, grabbing my phone after the first ring hoping to see his name appear on my call display. Whenever I’d turn a corner, I secretly hoped Danny would be around the other side waiting for me. He was like a ghost haunting me everywhere I turned. Closing my eyes at night to fall asleep, I’d stare into his blue eyes. When I’d open them, he’d be there right beside me, like an imaginary friend.

  Grief became my new best friend. First came the shock. It was around eleven o’clock on a workday morning when my cell phone vibrated incessantly in my suit jacket. Relatively new to the company back then, I was sitting attentively at a work meeting with senior management. I tried my best to ignore the calls but after what felt like fifty or more incessant vibrations, I knew I had to answer it. I remember stepping outside into the hall to answer my phone and startling the receptionists and secretaries with the sound of my gruff hello to whomever was on the other end. It was Mary, Danny’s sister, crying hysterically into the phone. There had been an accident. Something about a tractor trailer on the highway. Right away, I interrupted her and asked if Danny was all right. Dead, she wailed. Danny’s dead. Sucker-punched. All the breath zapped right out of me. My legs could barely hold me up. I froze. I kept the phone to my ear but words wouldn’t come to me. There had to be a mistake . . . not Danny . . . must be a mistake, I kept thinking. Mary asked me to meet her at the morgue. And with those words, our season in the sun had come to an end.

  The last time I saw Danny was the Sunday before he died. We were on one of our weekly Sunday morning bike rides through the trails of Toronto. I think about the thousands of kilometers the two of us clocked on our bikes together over the years and how today I sit on top of my bike all alone. In honor of Danny, I’ve decided to get on my bike this morning and ride to one of our favorite rest stops, James Gardens in Toronto, located on the west bank of the Humber River. With the warm air and bright sun shining, I begin my ride hearing Terry Jack’s voice singing in my head.

  I reflect back on the last three years of life without Danny. Surreal. Painful. Lonely. Irreversible. My grief has manifested itself in interesting ways. Where do I begin? For one, my workaholic tendency. In the first year after Danny’s death I dove head first into my career by logging in thousands of long hours and even more air miles in business travel. I operated on autopilot: work, sleep, and business travel. What better way to avoid the pain you’re feeling inside than to work yourself up to a perpetual state of exhaustion; too tired to think or to feel. As my career was advancing quickly and successfully, emotionally, I was sinking. The corner office came at a price and in my case, the price tag had loneliness, depression, and isolation written all over it. And I bought in willingly . . . still do.

  Socially, I changed. I avoided places where the two of us would hang out; no more bike rides to James Gardens, our occasional visits to our favorite pool hall, The Crooked Cue, stopped altogether, goodbye Toronto Maple Leafs’ games and adios to the monthly poker nights Danny and I used to play with some old friends from high school. When Claudia would call to invite me over, I almost always declined as I did with all the other invitations I’d get from work friends to join them at the pub. My Saturdays with David continued as planned but he didn’t have his regular Uncle Eric with him on those dates, a broken Uncle Eric pretending to be whole was what he got. My relationships with women following the loss of Danny . . . is there a therapist in the house? Living through grief with Lara, Danny’s fiancé, and watching the toll his death took on her changed the way I looked at love for a long time. Until I met Caroline.

  To watch Lara, a lovely, independent, intelligent woman full of energy and zest for life crumble into a million little pieces was enough to show me that love can be the most beautiful thing you experience, but also the most painful. With Danny gone, the signs of grief etched their way just as quickly in Lara’s world as they did into mine. Right after Danny’s funeral, Lara retreated to the condo they shared in Mississauga’s Square One area and didn’t leave it for weeks afterward. The couch became her lifeline. Whenever I’d stop in to visit, I’d find her in the same sweatpants and t-shirt, hair in a ponytail, and face swollen from crying, lying in a sea of scrunched up used tissues. Watching her whittle to one hundred pounds, gaunt-faced and lifeless further spiraled my own depression. Lara had been given a two-month compassionate leave from her job as manager at a downtown spa.

  I remember spending as much time as I could with her in those first few weeks. Sharing her sorrow, I knew what she was feeling because I was feeling it too. Only, I didn’t lose my short-of-three-days husband-to-be. On what should have been her Hawaiian honeymoon, Lara was mourning the shock of losing Danny and the uncertainty of her own future in a dimly-lit, way too quiet condo that the two of them used to call home. She had no future; she used to cry to me, without Danny. Her life was hopeless, she used to sob. Cut in half is how she used to describe how she was feeling. Her other half was forever gone and she swore she’d never be the same again.

  How do you console when you are in need of consoling yourself? We were like two zombies walking the dark, the blind leading the blind. For hours, Lara would lash out about the damned tractor-trailer driver speeding carelessly on a ramp, whose own life ended when Danny’s did. She’d talk about the probability of things having gone differently. With thousands of cars driving along the QEW that morning, how was it that the tractor-trailer happened to fall only on Danny’s Acura? What if Danny had left earlier for work . . . what if he had worked from home that day . . . what if they’d gotten married the Saturday before as previously planned but then had to switch the date because their venue had accidentally double-booked weddings . . . then they would have been on their honeymoon and Danny would still be alive?

  My own regrets kept coming back to why I wasn’t home that Tuesday night to take his phone call. If I hadn’t turned my cell phone off that night, then I would have had my last conversation with Danny in person. Instead, while I was in a compromising position in some downtown hotel room with a woman I couldn’t care less about, Danny was saying his last goodbye to me over an answering machine.

  Grief does that to you. One minute it fills y
ou with absolute disbelief and then the next minute, inconsolable tears. I read somewhere once that grief is what tells you that you’re all alone. With Lara, Mary and Mr. and Mrs. Callahan all grieving around me, I felt I had to be the strong one, the one to keep it together when their worlds were collapsing. I’d listen to them and keep them company but secretly I knew that I was dying inside. I never expressed my sorrow to anyone. Never talked to anyone about how much I was missing Danny. Never shared stories about him with anyone. He was gone and I felt like the old Eric was too. Talk about being all alone. Not only were the memories buried six feet under with Danny but also for all of us hurting, so was a future.

  I smile when I see the first sign of tulips as I wind my way along the bike trail at James Gardens. Early June and the flowerbeds are filled with bright red and purple flowers. The rock gardens sit as peacefully as ever and the pond where Danny and I used to stop and sit by is as tranquil as always. The nature trails are filling up with eager hikers this Sunday morning. I stop my bike and get off to rest on one of the park benches.

  I pull out my iPhone sitting in my pouch to check the time. 11:16 A.M. and one missed call. I didn’t hear the phone ring. I check for the caller ID and it reads Private Caller. Again? Didn’t I get a couple of calls on my house line last night that showed up as Private Caller as well? I wonder who’s been trying to get a hold of me.

  I return the phone to my pouch and take a long drink of water from my water bottle. I think about Mr. Callahan and am saddened. Nearing the end of his life. I think about which would be better: to just die suddenly and unexpectedly with little or no time to even realize you were dying, like Danny did?

  Or would it be worse knowing that your death was imminent, allowing you the time to prepare your loved ones for the end, like Mr. Callahan? I think about my own death and conclude that if I were to die today, my death wouldn’t impact anyone as strongly as Danny’s death affected Lara. Life without a love to share it with feels unfulfilled. Life without the one you love is just as unfulfilling. You’re damned either way. But, after meeting Caroline, I decide I have to give love a chance. That is, if I can find her. Tomorrow at work, I’m going to start working on Plan B in “Operation Seeking Caroline.”

  I ride up to my parents’ front door around noon and lean my bike up against the wall of their front porch. My parents live at the intersection of Islington and Eglinton, a short ride from James Gardens. Time to pay them a visit, I figure, and to drop in to visit Mr. Callahan, just a few doors away. As soon as I walk through the door, I’m welcomed home by the memorable aroma of my mother’s paella simmering on the stove and Billy Joel on the stereo.

  “I had a feeling we’d see you today,” my mother comes and meets me at the front door, cooking spoon in hand, donning the infamous apron around her waist. I give her a kiss on the cheek and then make my way to the bathroom to wash my hands and face. My father is sitting at the kitchen table reading the Sunday paper. I walk in and take my seat at the table, the same seat I sat in for the twenty-five years when I lived here. I just like to keep things the way they were.

  “How are you doing today?” my dad asks me before even looking up from the Sports page. My parents are living the anniversary of Danny’s death as well.

  “I rode to James Gardens,” I offer, not sure what else there is to say.

  “He doesn’t look very well,” my mother says while stirring the paella at the stove. Neither of us says a word.

  “David told me you guys went to High Park yesterday,” my dad tries to steer the conversation in a different direction. When David was a baby and young boy, my parents used to watch him all the time while Claudia was putting in all those long hours at the law firm. My parents share a very close bond with their only grandchild, spoiling him like crazy.

  “Yeah . . . we went on a long hike and then to Dairy Queen,” I say reaching for my fork. My mother has placed a huge plate of paella in front of me. I take in the smell of the saffron, lemon zest, bay leaf, chicken, and other spices before digging in. She loaded the paella today with sausage, chicken, and shrimp, knowing how much I love hot chorizo sausage. She knew I was going to come by today.

  “So, where are you travelling to next?” my dad asks while we are eating. He pours me a small glass of red wine first and then pours one for my mother and himself.

  “I have one night in Ottawa this week and then next Tuesday I leave for three days in Vancouver,” I say.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of living out a suitcase?” my mother asks. Here we go again, the suitcase question. After all these years of traveling for my company, my mother still can’t get over the fact that my business trips are long enough to not come home at the end of the day but too short to unpack your suitcase in your hotel room.

  “I mean you’re here and then you leave again, never staying long enough to get settled. Don’t you wish you could just stay home for a while?” she asks, for what feels like the sixtieth time. The truth is that although I do get tired of the different night, different bed routine, sometimes, I look forward to the diversion. No two-work weeks ever look the same for me. I meet new people; I travel to different places and never feel confined to the four walls of my office.

  There is nothing I enjoy more than arriving in a new city and walking around to explore it by myself. Entering into the peace and quiet of a hotel room at the end of a day of meetings is priceless. I’m used to being alone and love my solitude. Business travel allows me to have both time alone and company to be with, if I choose. Besides, if I weren’t travelling back home last Monday, I never would have met Sweet Caroline.

  “But what do you do all alone at night after your meetings are all done for the day . . . aren’t you lonely?” my mother asks. Elvis Presley’s ‘Burning Love’ hit is playing in the background.

  “Oh, I find things to do. I’m rarely bored.” I answer her as truthfully as I can. And then I change the subject as quickly as I can.

  “So, are you guys ready for me convert all of your music onto an iPod yet and get rid of these CDs and tapes?” I ask full well knowing they will say no, but I ask anyway.

  “What for? We don’t need an iPad or iPod or whatever it is you call it. We’re fine with our CDs,” my father answers predictably. Who am I to blame them for not wanting to change? I help clear away our dirty plates while my mother prepares the espresso maker to put on the stove. I stand at the sink and begin washing the dishes looking out the kitchen window in full view of the Callahan’s driveway. I notice Lara’s truck is parked there.

  After the three of us have finished our coffees, I leave my parents’ place and make my way over to visit Mr. Callahan. I get that familiar knot in my stomach feeling every time I go there. The memories of our childhood, Danny’s and mine, playing in his house or on his driveway come flooding back to me the minute I step in the threshold. It still makes me queasy and leaves me short of breath.

  Mrs. Callahan opens the door. She looks exhausted. I give her a hug and a kiss on both cheeks and follow her into the living room where Mr. Callahan’s hospital bed has been set up. Maybe it is the antiseptic, hospital odor that I smell or it’s seeing how frail and shrunken Mr. Callahan has become, but a wave of nausea overcomes me. I brush it aside and make my way over to him, sit on the edge of his bed and give him a long hug.

  “Three years, Eric,” is all he manages to say, barely in a whisper. Mrs. Callahan, standing by the bed beside us, begins to sob. I get up from the bed and hug her. I know that every time the Callahans see me, the pain of losing Danny hits them tenfold. My presence accentuates his absence because for twenty years the two of us were inseparable. All they have left are the memories and I know that I play a big part in them. I want to cry alongside them but at this moment, tears run dry.

  Lara walks into the living room. We give each other a slight smile. I haven’t seen Lara in a couple of months. She’s looking much healthier. It looks like she has regained some of the weight that she lost when Danny died, her blond hair has
grown back in after having fallen out in the immediate aftershock of his death, she’s wearing makeup again and I see a smile surface on her face now and again. Time seems to be helping her. She has come to visit Danny’s parents as she does every year on this day. I feel a little more comforted myself being here with the three of them today.

  The four of us sit in the Callahan’s living room and carry on with small talk for a while. Lara tells us how she recently bought into the downtown luxury spa that she manages and is now a part owner. Business is thriving, she says, with all the foreign clientele coming in for services while they’re in town; she is fully booked everyday for weeks at a time. Lara talks about the new condo that she bought right in the heart of downtown Toronto after recently selling the Mississauga condo she shared with Danny.

  The Callahans ask me if I have still been travelling a lot on business, the question everyone seems to ask me if I haven’t seen them for awhile. Mrs. Callahan talks about her flower garden and how she hasn’t had as much time to tend to it this spring since her husband’s condition has worsened. As depressing as it is to be sitting here like this, I’m glad that I’ve had the chance to talk to Mr. Callahan today. I wonder how much worse off he will be the next time I see him.

  As I get up to leave, Lara stops me.

  “Eric, I’m heading down to the spa right now . . . I could drive you home if you like . . . it’s on my way. We could put your bike in my trunk.” I agree to the ride home figuring she might want to talk a bit.

  Driving east along Bloor Street in the late afternoon sun, I glance over at Lara who’s driving. She really does look much better. Her blue eyes look happier, her face looks fuller, and she looks fit. At 5 foot 9 inches, Lara had always been an attractive woman, especially standing beside Danny, who at 5 feet 11 with a Beckham-like body of all limbs and tight abs, turned women’s heads. The two of them looked like one of those couples you’d see in those billboard ads for Calvin Klein or a Tom Ford fragrance, all chiseled and sculpted fitting each other perfectly.