TheBanyanTree: The Veil

[R J Fernalld]

Wearing black for you, the veil that hides my face also hides your heart,
dear one. From the last pew I watch as your family gathers. The pastor that
shunned and tried to shame us drones on about how loved you were by the
parents who hadn't a clue about you.

They came while I was out with the key they had from your purse. All your
effects the night of the accident went to them. Your mother took your
clothes, your father took your books, your self righteous brother took your
poetry and I came home to find our apartment bare of you. It was then that I
screamed. 'How can this be right....how can you be
gone...how can I continue...how can they strip me of you'. But they do...the
law without mercy says they can so they do.

The service continues. I hear your brother eulogize the sister he considered
sinful for whom she loved. I see your mother's tears and wonder if they are
more tears of relief than of pain. I see your father constantly scanning the
crowd...searching the mourners for me. He knows I am here. He is nervous
that I will make a scene. He needn't. I won't. I will not protest this
painful injustice here for your sake...not for his.

The twelve years of bliss with you is something they tried but could not
take. Our marriage was a simple rite of love declared, but unsanctioned by
law...for somehow "love" evidently could not be enough. And here, today, it
cannot be enough for me to have loved you truly, for I am unwelcome. If they
had loved you, they would have accepted me out of respect for you...but I am
still the dirty secret they fear.

It is strange that the veil is black. The veil of devotion and love that
surrounded us when we were alone was luminescent....alive. I hate hiding.
How this veil chokes me.

The people are leaving. They brush by me and I feel oddly light. The roses
with which they've adorned you make me laugh. They really didn't know you.
You hated the cloying scent of roses. Your skin, soft as new petals, smelled
of lilies and your kiss was smooth and warm as sunshine. "Lilies are the
subtle shape of hope", you always said. The music of your voice and poetry
of your spirit still lingers here in me, my love. It will forever.

You loved me and gave me life worth living. We were lovers and mates as
surely as God ordained it. I cannot claim you in death as I could not claim
you in life...but here you are, my darling...I have brought you lilies from
behind the veil.

copyright R J Fernalld 2003