Dear Mother/Father God: I’ve been marvelling at your creations lately; marvelling at how you created such an incessant lover. Steele could sense everything about me. One day he told me his secret weapon. He said my nose flares when I am mad, so he could always tell if I didn’t like something he said or did, or if I was getting frustrated in a conversation, or feeling some heightened negative emotion: my bull nose would start rearing up. I never believed him. One time I noticed myself in the mirror. I had to admit that my nose did indeed flare, but I never conceded it was because I was mad.
He was so committed to making me happy. Thanks for making him like that. If he knew I had a secret crush on Ribena, he would stop at the gas station and buy one on his way home. If he knew I loved Honey Bunches of Oats cereal with strawberries, he would insist we buy that brand at the food store. If he knew I loved broccoli and cheese soup from TGIF, he would suggest I get that for lunch the next time. If I was in the mood for some pork, he would suggest we drive to the Jerk Shop in St. Elizabeth, or drive out to Beefy on Red Hills Road. If he knew I wanted to get home at 1.30pm to watch the Bold and the Beautiful, he would drive a little faster if we were running late. He was incessant.
He wasn’t the same way about refraining from the things I didn’t like though. If I hated to watch wrestling, he would still insist on it every Monday and Friday night. If I insisted that a ‘vintage’ BMW was not a practical car, he would still refuse to sell and say it was his baby. If I insisted he wasn’t a mechanic, he would still tinker under the roof of the car before we left the parking lot. If I hated to fix the floor mats in the car when they were dislodged, he would still insist that I stop pushing them under the seat and straighten them out properly. If he knew I hated him to eat cow foot and beans, he would still insist on ordering it if he saw it on the menu.
He loved food, like me. He was never concerned that I ate just as much as him. I bet he thought I would miss him so much that it would kill my appetite. Tell him it worked on everything else, but not my appetite: worse how it’s mango season and I don’t have to share with him. He was never that big on mangos though. I think you did that strategically so we didn’t fight and to make him look ‘considerate’. He loved other nasty stuff, like okra in his steamed fish, and liver. Why on earth would you make people eat that?
He loved to eat Hershey’s Cookies & Cream: White Chocolate and Cookie Bits, but he’d always have to use the bathroom after he ate it. I would always buy it for him when we went to the movies: always only at Carib Cinema 5. The last movie we watched together was Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. He loved the Underworld Trilogy; we watched all of them. In fact, he loved vampires in general. When the HBO vampire series True Blood came out he watched it religiously.
Are you mad at me because I didn’t always do things to make him happy? I knew he hated me to put my feet on the dashboard; I would still sit that way whether I was in a skirt or pants. I knew he hated me to play mas, but I always jumped anyway. I knew he hated to jam up on the little French love seat, but I would still squeeze next to him when he was lying there and insist we could fit. I knew he hated grits and sardines, but I insisted on eating it and never failed to offer him some. I knew he hated me to run down his cell phone battery, but I always used his phone when I wanted to play games so I didn’t run down my battery. Tell him I say I’m sorry please.
Tell him I love him too, and thank you. And tell him I need his help with something: I need him to help me to live. That goes for you too. I don’t feel like I’m mourning anymore. I feel more like I’m dead. Funny enough, someone told me this morning, “I don’t think I should just stand by as you’re buried.” Maybe they see me six foot under too.