Remember Her

My wife pulls out her phone. “Someone called,” she looks at the caller ID, “Lucien” she said, “Twice,” frowning.

He called twice?” I ask.

Then as if responding her phone rings again while in her hand. She gets up from the table and takes the call. “Lucien.”

I nod.

As they talk I do whatever mindless thing I was doing prior to the interruption, drooling if memory serves.

A while later she comes back and tells me, “Karen died.”

“Who.”

“Do you remember the woman at Lucien and Eliza’s wedding, she gave that long speech crying?”

"Then danced the rest of the day with that older man?”

“Yeah.”

I did remember her. “She died?” I questioned. It didn’t feel right. My memory of that woman and death did not fit together. “How?”

“Breast Cancer.”

She was so alive six months ago, “she died?” it did not seem right those words and that memory. That woman who cried so hard at the microphone while giving a speech. She let her heart flow and the words had meaning. I don’t remember them individually, I can only remember thinking it was a speech someone gave to someone they love and are letting them go, releasing them, saying goodbye, I remember he is yours now, though I doubt she said that.

I had wondered why she was so emotional.

She was saying goodbye. Maybe they had moments after. Maybe it wasn't a complete surprise to the groom, her friend. Maybe she was practicing, maybe, maybe, maybe, "She died?"

"Yeah."

I remember her dancing. It was during dinner right after the speeches. The music started and she was there on the dance floor. Shoes off and she was going, doing it, visiting funky town and I think about the quote dance like no one is watching and she was actually doing it. She didn’t seem to care which song was playing. She closed her eyes and she just did it. We all were watching. She didn’t care. She never left the dance floor. I thought maybe she was drunk, but she never had a beverage in hand, or at least she wouldn’t in my mind, nor do I now think she was drunk on a fermented beverage, maybe on life, maybe taking it, savoring the last bite, enjoying the last drop.

How can someone live that hard at the end, so free, and make it look so easy.

In my mind she knew she dying on that day, in my memory, she will always be more alive than anyone else in that room.

I never met her. We never spoke. Somehow though I think I will remember her for the rest of my life.

In that maybe she earned immortality, in that maybe she deserves it.