Forever January

“Here, let me get that for you,” I say as I take the glass from his hands and fill it with water. A pair of deep-set, upturned hazel eyes gaze into places I cannot see as I turn around and press the glass back into his hands, my hand gently pointing his elbow in the direction of the kitchen table.

We sat there in that small kitchen, one of us in the light, the other in the dark. I asked him if he wanted something to eat. He says no. Silence. Finally he turns towards me, head tilted.

“It’s hard being like this, you know. Some days I don’t want to continue on. I feel like my world has been taken from me. But the last thing I remember …” His voice trails off as he looks upward, heaving a small sigh from his chest.

“It was last Februray, in New Orleans. The last thing I ever vividly remembering seeing was your hair before the blindness came completely. It was fire in the sun.” He takes a sip of water. More silence.

“Don’t ever stop being you,” he finally murmurs. “You’ll always be my fire in the sun.”

–

And this is my last memory of you, dear one, of our quiet moments together in that small pink kitchen which smelled of bleach and betrayal. You telling me you wished I was your daughter, that I should never change, that I was fire in the sun.