A Passage to His Grave

I realized again that I could only chase after him. A passage to his grave had been worn in my heart. Each time the wind began to blow and the dandelions silently stood guard along the sides of the road, Graham and I would meet. In order to bring “us” back to life, I had to die. I could only be reborn via my own destruction.

At dusk on the first day of the New Year, the same rash John was outside my front door beeping his horn. When he saw me at the window, he immediately stepped out of that bright black car; one hand held a dozen red roses, the other closed the door of the car with a bang. He entered our home for the first time, a present to celebrate the New Year.

Men - men from across the world all fall so easily into the love trap. They think that once they've taken a woman to bed, she's given them some sort of promise.

I took the roses and introduced John to my mother, "Ma, this is John. He works for IBM in the US. He's come to apologize. He's the one who stole your daughter away on New Year's Eve."

"Exactly, first I'm here to beg your forgiveness, second I'm here to wish you a Happy New Year, and third…" He noticed that my mother's English was quite good, so switched to French, "faire sa cour". Most well-educated North Americans can speak some French.

I looked right at him. For a second, my eyes filled with tears. How could I not feel sorry for him? Here he was coming to spend my last moments on earth with me.

My mother wanted him to eat "tang yuan", or sweet rice balls, but I suggested we eat dinner first. And so the three of us sat around a large table covered with Chinese delicacies, eating as we talked. I'm not sure why, but as I followed John's deep, clear eyes and his very American sense of humor, I felt as if I were with Graham all over again. He's waving at me from a distance. I'm caressing him with my eyes, my inner being, only to caress in the end my own bitter spirit. Damn, damn, damn. Yet again I understood - I could only run after him. In my heart, a passage to his grave had already been prepared. Each time the wind would blow and the dandelion soldiers would silently float into my soul, Graham and I would meet. In order to bring "us" back to life, I had to die. I could only be reborn via my own destruction.

I looked closely at John and found myself wondering. If I had never met Graham, would I have fallen in love with John? They're such absolute opposites. John is like the southern Californian sun, full of energy, warm, luminous. His eyes shine like the sun reflecting off a lake, warm, fragrant and calm. Graham, on the other hand, was a loner, a man comfortable in the snow of winter. Melancholy hardened his small, narrow eyes like an old, snow-covered mountain. Only when love itself began to chip away at the ice, did he become an explosive volcano.

I didn't have an answer to my query. Fate was in control. Time after time, fate had been in control. Graham was my fate, my love; our happiness had pushed me to life's pinnacle, yet in the blink of an eye, our world had come crashing down. In the face of experiences such as this, women are left to build a permanent monument upon the rubble. To love Graham, to follow him from this world, would leave me with no regrets. In the end, this alone would be my final happiness, my final home.

My love, do you have any idea how many nights I spent alone, beneath the moon, wading through the rubble of New York's World Trade Center? Often someone else would pass by, a relative of yet another victim. We would smile at each other, tears welling in our eyes.

I would look up through my tears toward that fire in the sky and I would see that bow tie, stained with my lipstick, crying loudly in the night wind. I would run towards it, but with each step, it grew not closer but further away. I stopped to lean against the trunk of a huge tree, sobbing. Oh wronged spirit, I cannot run to you, hold you, kiss you. Come back, come back…

At that very moment, a teary-eyed passerby would always stop to comfort me. The tears would continue to fall silently, my body trembled uncontrollably, tears poured forth like blood, then in a final look back, it was as if your cold hand was reaching out, and in that hand was the bow tie, that lipstick stain…my groom, my love, you didn't have time to leave me even the simplest of goodbyes. How could this have happened? In a moment everything was gone. Let me bear this heavy cross. I won't lay it down until we meet again. Oh my love, what a bitter life you had! When you were just an infant, your mother abandoned both you and your father. Winter was longest in your life! How many nights did you sit alone for us, for our love? And now, you're gone. At what was to me our most wonderful moment, disaster rained down, leaving nothing behind, no body, no ashes…

I walked once over the rubble with your father. Tears stained his face. You have never and wouldn't want to ever see him like he was that day. I threw a bunch of flowers, one by one, into the air. A single red rose twirled in mid-air, as if it were made of velvet. It was calling your name; it was my heart, bleeding, in search of you - my love, where are you? Your bride is still waiting for you here on earth. The blue sky is boundless; life on earth is full of misery. I looked toward the horizon, then as tears began to flow, I started digging, digging for your ashes. I used those same ten fingers that once played the piano for you to dig. I dug until my nails were blackened and cracked. I was sure your ashes were there. I had to find you, to dig you out. People pointed. Look at that crazed woman, they would whisper. That must be the Chinese Wall Street bride who was supposed to get married on September 11. She was so beautiful that day. Look what's happened to her; how terribly pitiful…

I didn't bother to look up, ignoring them completely, and put the ashes into a bag. Those ashes, our wedding photos and my wedding dress were laid to rest in a grave that had been prepared for you on the outskirts of New York. My love, I will always be your forever fiancée. I buried my heart and our future with you. Never again will I put on a wedding dress. I've tried twice, but never managed to stand before God. I know now that for me the road to married life was nothing but a wild dream. The road has been long, so very long, and I will never reach the end.

I saved a handful of those ashes and have kept them in a small pouch that I made. The pouch is tied with a yellow silk rope and it has become my temple to you. I keep it in a pocket close to my body; wherever I go, you are with me. Dearest, wait for me. As soon as I've prepared everything here in the mortal world, I'll join you. I can't stand to think of you floating alone. I'm the person closest to you, your lover, your mother, your daughter, your Wall Street bride, your forever fiancée…

The morning before I left New York, I brought four moving men down by the Statue of Liberty. In her bronzed, green clothing, she was especially beautiful in the early dawn light. I thought over and over again of that line in the poem by Emma Lazarus inscribed on the pedestal at the foot of the statue: "Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she with silent lips. Graham, I thought of your mother, almost fifty years go, a geisha of exceeding beauty. She arrived here alone, after learning that her lover had taken another wife. What cry came forth from her silent lips?

Silent lips, the tracks of a beautiful woman's tears. A new love in a foreign country was not enough to heal her wounds. Even motherhood couldn't keep her here. She left your father and you, just a newborn, and with tear-filled eyes returned to the flowers and silks of Asia. Only a saddened Atlantic Ocean saw her off…

Now, one who has yet to die stands here like a statue. What cry comes forth from her silent lips?

Ellis Island is covered in snow and the cold winter wind whips through the streets and alleyways of New York. I look out over the ocean and hear the beating of my own heart. Dearest, twelve years have passed since the first time we parted -- we promised then to love each other for a thousand years. Twelve years is one cycle, from life to death. Today's my last day in New York, tomorrow I'll leave alone, bidding a final farewell to this place that once filled me with excitement when I first arrived and eventually sucked the very life out of me. Dearest, before I depart, I'll leave my broken heart here in your homeland. You loved New York. New York was home to all of your happiest moments, your tears, to everything that is engraved in our bones and hearts forever.

I glanced at my watch. It was almost 8:50 am, the exact moment you left this earth. At the same time every day since that bloody September 11 morning, a cold fear has taken over and a sharp pain pierces my very being.

I've asked the movers to bring a huge painting here. It's our wedding portrait. You were so busy that we didn't manage to take the pictures until a week before the wedding. You never saw the beautiful portrait. I had the photographer print the photo as a giant four by six meter oil painting.

"Throw it into the somber mournful Atlantic Ocean with the picture facing up," I told them.

The painting landed with a "thud", waves lapped at its edges. A beautiful portrait now floated upon the surface of the ocean like a sailboat. "Oh, how beautiful!" Passersby stopped to stare; travelers on morning ferries craned their curious necks. Are you looking down from heaven, my love? It's for you. The ocean forms our walls, the wide world is our new home, and heaven will welcome our spirits. The ocean and the sky are of one color, forever, in life and in death. I took off my hat and looked up toward the sky. Hot tears poured from my eyes…

Death and birth are one and the same

Both are beautiful moments

The final evening sky and the first dawn are one and the same

Both are the brilliance of the sun

Let the wind blow the years

Leave them to the eagle in flight

Let the clouds lift my body

Leave me in heaven…

I stared up at the sky, the clouds were spectacular, dreamlike; they seemed to float up from the ocean. I had never seen such a beautiful color - except the day my grandmother died - the same sky, the same world.

The sun is so spectacular, always rising, always setting. As she climbs brightly over a mountain on one side of the earth, she sets beneath the horizon on the other. My love, it's time for me to walk down that mountain. Why wait for the wrinkles and walking cane of old age. In a mountain hollow, a joyous girl runs, in her arms her favorite doll.

That can't be me.

Or can it?

Endless desire is burned into the universe.

"Don't just sit there, child. Take care of your guest." My mother's words brought me back. I poured John some wine, then handed him a photo album. "John, here are all of the photos taken between the day I was born and my wedding day at the age of twenty one."

"Great, I can't wait to see them all," he replied as he took the album.

I turned my eyes to my mother. "Ma, please eat." I put a few drunken shrimp on her plate. I continued to watch her from the corner of my eye. My heart ached. In a few short months, she had aged - a few more silver hairs, a few more obvious wrinkles.

As a daughter, I was crying inside. My mother was the only thing on this earth that I couldn't bare to leave. My life meant everything to her. She lost her parents when she was young, then lost her husband. Now in her twilight years, would she finally lose her daughter as well? How would she live? I must be desperately selfish to think of doing such a thing. I am. I am crazy - absolutely crazy.

Except for a small bag, I hadn't brought anything with me. The person was gone. What else did I need? I'd asked Graham's father to ship everything from our home in Manhattan, including all of Graham's belongings, to his home in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. I gave my clothes away to friends.

My bag was empty, but for my passport, credit cards, identification cards and a bank check. That check represented the return on fifteen years of traveling the world. This was all I would leave my mother. I know it won't mean much to her in her old age, but in total that money represents my footsteps, my hopes. Before I came to Shanghai, I sold our luxury Manhattan apartment. It had been Graham's and my love nest. He's gone; everything's gone. What was the point of holding on to that hell on earth? The check also includes the royalties from a novel I wrote based on Graham's mother's life, Endless Spring. Graham's skill on Wall Street had increased the value of the royalties to close to ten times their original worth. I came with nothing and I leave with nothing. I just hope that my mother will spend it all before she dies. I hope she can lose herself in the material world. Perhaps in this way the pain will slowly dissipate?

I'm so sorry, so sorry, Ma. Ten thousand apologies - I know you don't want anything except for me, a happy me; like when I was a child and you would wake early to prepare breakfast for me, then rub my feet as I fell asleep at night. But Mama, do you have any idea how many nights I've felt as if I were lying in utter darkness? I've seen that heavenly light. It pierces the surface of the water. I lift my head and am ready to make my way towards the sky. I follow the twists and turns; my hair falls in disarray. God! My fingers have turned to gold in an instant. They're reaching toward the sky - really - I can touch that light. It's Graham's teary-eyed spirit calling to me. It's cold, so cold. My feet feel as if they are just about to reach the very bottom of the river. Love flows like sand…each drop of rain that falls from the sky is a tear falling in my heart. Night is so long and so dark. I can't take it anymore.

I'm so sorry Ma. So very sorry. Hate me, your only daughter, for being selfish. Blame me for being weak. When I lost Graham, I lost everything. I have nowhere else to go. I've tried living. I've even tried loving again - this really special American man sitting with you right now, for example. But I've failed, Mama. In other men's embraces I think only of Graham. I can't help myself. Let me go; let me go with him…some day, in a rose-scented place called Heaven, I'll stretch my wings and run towards you, "Mama…" We'll hold each other. We'll cry; we'll laugh. We'll take this love with us into eternity.

Yes, Ma, remember, eternity.