The Dying Rain: Trish

For Trisha Ann Villegas

Gone 12/2019

I have to pay tribute to this much too shortened friendship. I can’t sit still for some reason….

I feel…..

It’s amazing how things can move you….isn’t it?

What’s the point of life, I ask sometimes….

I think of Trisha and what she went thru….

What her family is going thru….

And I think. I’ll shut my mouth.

I wrote this a few years ago.

Trisha loved it, she said.

I will miss my friend.

The Dying Rain

The rain began to patter on the window that looked out over my best friend’s small garden.

I was holding her frail hand, the one with her “green thumb”.

I smile at this…

She always giggled when she told me that she could kill a plastic plant…

I’ve seen it happen.

But now her eyes were closed, her breath labored.

….. today was a good day for her, considering basically everything in her body turning against itself.

She may have been asleep but, her fingers gripped mine as hard as she could squeeze.

I could barely tell I was holding her hand at all, as weak as she was.

It’s so painful, beyond belief really, to try and imagine strength draining away from the strongest person you have ever known.
….like sand in an hourglass.

I laced my fingers thru hers, gripping them a little harder, tracing the veins on the back of her hand with my other fingers.

I can’t believe I’m losing her….

My bestest friend in the whole world is dying………Dying!

[RUMBLE]

I can hear the thunder in the distance, the rain coming and going, the branches of the trees scraping lightly across the rainy panes of glass

In the storm graying light of the small bedroom I turn back into a time; thinking of our lives together.

I have done this more than usual lately….

Six months…..

It’s slipping away.

Too fast…

…..Way too damn fast.

Doesn’t it seem weird that when you are about to lose someone close to your heart, a piece of your very soul, that we start to reflect on our memories of them more, as if though trying to burn them deeper into our hearts and minds….

It’s as if though we are afraid that we might forget something important….forget them?

I look at her face as she sleeps….

She’s so beautiful……..even now.

My flower is fading….

The sun is leaving her eyes.

The rain reminds me that I must not cry……

Cloud tears trickle down, the beads of sky diamonds ornamenting her window…..mirroring my heart.

I won’t weep…..

Not now at least; she gets upset when I cry.

I sit there, holding my friends tiny hand, staring out the jeweled window as the storm drums the shutters.

The lightning is bright, the thunder is closer….the rain, more insistent…..

I can smell the trees, a little.

I begin the stroll down our memory lane; it isn’t raining there.

There is only laughter, joy and our high school prom.

There is only skinned knees, gum in our hair and boyfriends we shared.

[RUMBLE]

I am brought back from my breaking heart to the bedside when I feel her stir under the blankets….

The thunder moves her.

Her eyes are open and I follow her hooded gaze.

She is looking out the window, watching the storm.

Shadows of the window panes, rain drops and lightning dance across her face…..

She is quiet….Still.

Oh so still…..

I notice a small tear is running down her pale cheek and across her dry lips…

I reach up and wipe the tear away with my finger.

I feel guilty that I am alive.

She tugs on my hand and lingeringly presses it to her lips….she drops my hand with a tired sigh.

She turns her face toward me….

I raise my finger to my lips and kiss what’s left of her tear….

She gives me that shy grin of hers and turns back to the storm.

“Will you do me a favor?” she asks in her beautiful, weak voice; the stormy sky reflecting in her dimming, pretty eyes.

“I don’t know” I say “I’m kinda busy” I grin.

She squeezes my hand again before turning to look at me, her gaze imploring.

“I’m serious” She says.

My heart stops. I will not cry….

No, not yet. I’m not ready

“You bet” I whisper, both my hands pressing hers to show my promise.

I can’t squeeze hard. She lives very close to pain that I can’t imagine.

She turns her face back toward the window as the rain dances across the roof, the thunder making the panes tremble….

She says “Think of me when it rains….”

I cannot cry in front of her….

I will not….

My best friend in life is slipping away like a dream, like water thru my fingers….

“I hope it rains forever” I say….

Her eyes are closed now…

Her fingers relax in mine….

“It doesn’t hurt anymore…” she whispers.

I thank God for this small answer to my anguished prayers….and I curse him.

“No…don’t go…” I say

I am an asshole for being alive.

How dare I….

I never thought that would be the last thing she would hear from my lips.

No God….not her….

Not my friend…..

Take me instead, I’ll go. I’ll go right now!

She…..

She dropped my hand.

Her heart has finished its toil.

I can’t breathe….I gotta get out of here….I…….can’t…..breathe….Oh my God! Oh my God!!!

She has gone from me into the storm….

She lives where lightning is born….

Our joined lives continue as memory….

I guess I can cry now….

No, I can’t…. I think it still upsets her…no matter.

I will dance in the rain with the memory of my friend, and we will laugh…

I rejoice in the fact that as long as I live, she will be there with me.

She will watch our children grow.

She will watch our children become best friends.

One day, at the worst possible moment, It will be time for me weep for my lovely…

I thank God for Heaven and eternal life….

Oh my God, why is it so hard to breathe when I think of her?

I can already hear her voice in my head…

“Cry baby”

I smile….

It’s true….

She’s here…..right now.

She is alive in the thunder and rain.

I will think of her….