Elegy For A Perfect Rose

I try to avoid making mention of some people in my personal life in my blog. I make the occasional reference, but never do I pin anyone by name. There are aspects and people in my personal life that are best kept separate from this place. After all, my very few readers are not exactly interested in them. However, for this instance, I will make an exception. For this event, I will speak directly of someone who meant a lot to me. There is no word in the English language to fully convey just what she was to me.

And now, she’s gone.

Regardless of my supposed talent for words, I’ve never been able to give the people I care about, the people who matter to me a proper elegy. The elegant words of the grave that the departed do not hear are elusive to me. It is one of my great number of weaknesses. But in this case, for this particular girl, I feel that I need to at least try. Before I go on, I’d like to apologize to her for my inadequacy, as the words fail to convey what emotions reveal with such irreverent ease.

Elegy For A Perfect Rose

She was…special, I guess would be the right word. I could probably put together an impressive array of adjectives for her, I could exhaust the words of every language ever made by human thought, and it would still be inadequate. Words fail to describe what she was to me, and any attempt to put her spirit, her persona, her spark down to mere sounds and symbols would be but an exercise in futility. All I can really say to describe her is that she was who she was, no less than that, but sometimes something more.

Unlike the stereotype, our last conversation wasn’t one with regrets or one of missed opportunities. When she packed up and left for her trip, her visit to some family members, I told her I’d miss her, that things would not be the same without her. She called me a sap, punched me in the arm, and kissed me goodbye. No regrets. She loved me and I loved her. A simple, concise affirmation of what the feelings were between us. No, what had happened between us is not what fuels the burden of regret for me.

It is what never happened that I regret.

She lived in fear that she stood in the shadow of her older sister, that she had an impossible standard to live up to. She feared her inability to meet that standard, to exceed the levels that her sister attained. She feared I could never love her for her, as her sister’s face was what I saw whenever she flashed me her smile. She dreaded the irrational fear that I held her, loved her for her sister’s potent visage. She feared that idea, even as I worked to calm that irrational fear by showing her that I did not see her as her sister.

I regret I never told her that I lived in her sister’s shadow and that I was there with her in that overwhelming darkness. I regret not taking her by the hand sooner.

She was, like her older sister, a fire that burned bright. The flames that consumed my fuel and sparked me to levels of creative genius and literary madness. I regret not realizing how truly different the natures of their fires were, how the blazes they started in me were so fundamentally contrasted in their potency. Her sister was a flame born of conditioning, lit to serve a purpose, maintained to form a flare of intensity and precision. She was an ember loose in the woods, a small spark that fought the elements and consumed what fuel could be found to grow. She took her strengths where she could find them, and began to grow to achieve greater strength.

I regret not telling her I knew the differences and telling her of them. I regret not speaking to her, of telling her I longed to see the inferno she could become.

She gave me an idea that, though simple and possibly hackneyed, I adored. A creative venture that she crafted in her mind specifically for my hands to compose, to put to the written word. It bore with it a subtle appeal, one that was easy to miss if one does not know how to seek it. A precious idea, one that she told me would make for the perfect gift once I was done with it.

I regret that she did not live to see me begin. I regret that I never gave her the thanks she was due for crafting it.

A few regrets, but they are burdens for a lifetime. Yet, even as I regret the things I failed to do, I cannot deny that most of what we had was utter bliss. What she left me, what she gave me, were things that I would cherish for eternity.

She gave me the spark again, the creative fire that burned bright. You let me have one more chance to show what I was capable of, to make my mark on the world with what I write. You showed me I still had it in me, that I was not burned out, that I could still play the game. You gave me what I needed to write again, returned me to the art that I almost abandoned.

She gave me support when no one else would, slapped me in the face and told me to continue when all else told me it wasn’t worth it. You never let me quit and told me to go on, to work through my writer’s block and come up with words of grandeur and fantasy. You never left my side as I wrote, even when I was at my lowest and worst. A muse such as you, I can never find again.

She was my friend, my shoulder to cry on. She took all my worries, my fears, and my insecurities. She took them and taught me to toss them aside and embrace what I was capable of. She listened to me as I complained and whined, as I raved this way and that about how all things in my life were terrible. All save for her. And when I was done, you would take my hand, look me in the eye, and knock some sense into me. When I was worried, you worried with me. When I was paranoid, you helped me prepare for the worst. When I needed you, you were by my side.

She loved me, even when I didn’t deserve her. I used her. I neglected her. I ignored her. I hurt her. For so many years, I wouldn’t even consider her feelings. But she was always there, always ready to give me that primal smile, the one that showed just how down her mind could go. She was always ready to extend her hand, offer her time and her assurances and her grace when I needed it, whether I admitted that need or not. I didn’t deserve her, but she reminded me of a simple lesson about the nature of love.

”We are not loved because we are worthy. We are worthy because we are loved.”

She taught me the value of a single, perfect rose.

I still can’t quite grasp just how many roles she took on when she became part of my life. She was my muse. She was my creative spark. She was my angel of mercy. She was my madness. She was my power. She was my passion. She was my world. She was the devil inside me. She was my saving grace. She was my ruthless taskmaster.

She was my girl.

So here I am, here without you. I’ll never see that wicked smile again. I’ll never hold your hand again. I’ll never feel that comforting numbness that I get when you use my arm as a pillow as you sleep again. I’ll never see that sugary look in your eyes, the one that makes me agree with you again. I’ll never kiss you out of the blue to end an argument I’m losing again. So many things to say, but no words to say them with.

In the end, everything here feels hollow to me. Pointless. In the end, these are words she’ll never hear, things that she’ll never know. In the end, all I can really think of comes out cliché. In the end, what needs to be said were the last words I spoke to you.

“I love you.”

May your path be forever filled with roses, Mint.



Mint
(November 5, 1984 — June 18, 2007)

~A Daughter~
~A Sister~
~A Lover~
~A Perfect Rose~