The Trappings of the Afterlife: Yvette's Lament

It was a long walk, but I’d known that when I started. The sun had been sweltering and the sand had burned my feet, but I’d made it. I stood at the center of an island with a crescent shaped bay between two rocky hillocks, and beyond the hills, the ocean. It was night now, and all I could see was an inky blackness.

I sat on a rock and waited for the morning light to shine over the water. Then, I would have to make my way back.

I remembered the first time we had come here, just a year ago. It wasn’t like any other place we’d been – and not just because of its remote location in the Pacific. This place was different in ways I didn’t understand, not then anyway. When we’d walked through those hills, following a path that led us to that beach, I felt… something. A presence? A weight? Something fundamental and present but invisible. A sense of expectancy. Of waiting.

We were thrilled by the isolation, excited by how little chance anyone else would ever have of stumbling across these hills and this beach. We laughed and joked as we made our way back to camp, the sun setting on a horizon that stretched further than we could see in either direction.

That was when things began to change between us. That night I woke up when he got out of bed to answer nature’s call outside our tent – it usually didn’t bother me if he got up at night to do that, but suddenly I couldn’t bear him leaving me alone in such silence and darkness. He seemed surprised when he noticed how tightly I held onto him when he crawled back into the tent, so much so that he decided to just lay down next to me again instead of getting up again for his “bathroom break”. We fell asleep holding each other tight after that - or rather, neither of us slept at all that night; we were both too afraid to let go of one another even long enough to get some rest.

The next day we woke up early and went back to the spot where we had felt that presence before without hesitation now that we knew what it was – it was as if a solid door had opened in our minds overnight and let everything in from outside into our conscious thoughts! We walked past the hills “as if on air” as I told him later; every step was lighter than before now that we knew what this place meant. We skipped along excitedly through the sand along a path that went right past our first steps together. By then we didn’t even need to talk about it anymore – we knew exactly where to go and what awaited us there! It felt like… home? But how could anything feel like home if you hadn't even been there yet? Yet it did feel familiar somehow! As if our whole life together had led up to this moment!

When we reached our destination again and saw the sun rising over that landscape again… it felt like love! Like being wrapped up completely in someone you love! Like being loved by someone you love! And afterwards… oh… afterwards it felt like nothing less than Heaven itself! Like pure bliss! An endless ocean of happiness without any waves or wind getting in your way! There was nothing more perfect than this moment! Nothing more complete than being here with him! My husband! The man who loved me more than anything else in this world! Who wanted me more than anything else in this world! Who supported me and encouraged me even during my most difficult times over these last ten years together! Who always believed in me no matter what happened! What woman would have found such an unconditional love anywhere else in this world?! Not many women cared so deeply for their men after they were married… only here could we find such joy together! Only here could two people be joined so perfectly as one body with two hearts in unison forever after such lovemaking - such sex!!! So much sex!!! So good!!! So much pleasure!!! So much passion!!! So much spunk!!! So much humor!!! So much joy!!! So much fun!!! So much love!!!

Then… everything changed back again when he died so suddenly while hiking while on vacation with his family back home near Munich – taken away from me far too soon by a stupid traveler who simply drove too fast down a road where people should have been driving slowly enough to notice him walking alongside them just fifteen meters away from their car window – impossibly close for such distance between human beings separated by death (but such proximity never meant anything for us!). He died instantly under their tires - thrown violently aside across several meters before finally tumbling into a ditch alongside the road where he lay bleeding out until someone finally noticed him lying there unconscious. Thus ended thirteen years together in one instant when his heart stopped beating forever with mine still beating for both of us ever since...