Page 101 of One More Day
She turns round at last, so I quicken my step to greet her with open arms. I don’t need to say anything more. It’s raining heavily now but she shelters me beneath her umbrella. Michael used to joke how his mother was never a ‘hugger’, yet she clings to me now like a vine, but lets me go again almost as quickly as she started, then we link arms and walk slowly together up the slight slope to the lighthouse.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asks me softly. ‘For Michael?’
I nod, biting my lip as my eyes burn hot with tears.
‘Yes, for Michael.’
‘I come here every year to remember him,’ she whispers against the wind. ‘Every year on Christmas Eve, I come here just for him.’
The way we are walking together reminds me of how we did the same at his funeral. My heart is thumping; Evelyn is poised and strong.
‘He loved this place so much, Rose,’ she tells me, even though I already know. ‘He said there was a magic here on Fanad Head. A sense of time standing still, yet spectacular views that reminded him always of the beauty of the world. The vulnerability of humanity. I like to remember him that way. He was always so in awe of the beauty of the world, no matter what life would throw at him.’
I expect her to break down when she speaks of Michael so fondly but instead of crying, Evelyn turns to me and smiles.
‘I’ve a lot to thank you for, Rose.’
I swallow back tears.
‘You have?’
‘I do,’ she says softly, looking out towards Malin Head, a place that sits amongst rugged cliffs on this perilous ocean. ‘Even though I’ve never had the courage to say it before, I need to thank you for so much.’
‘But I thought you … I always thought … ?’
And then I remember Charlie’s advice.
Thoughts are just thoughts. Once you learn to control your thoughts, they no longer control you.
We stop beneath the shadow of the lighthouse, the waves crashing onto the rocks below us. The rain slows down to a drizzle, the type that stings your eyes and soaks you to the bone, but I’m too enthralled with what Evelyn has to say to notice.
My heart thuds in my chest. I feel like falling to my knees in sorrow for this grieving mother, yet she wants to thank me? For what?
‘You see, Rose, I’ve taken my time to process everything that has happened, and it hit me one day like it all made sense,’ she tells me. ‘Michael was so happy. He was the happiest I’ve ever known him to be.’
Oh God.
‘You showed Michael more love in your brief years together than many people experience in a lifetime,’ she continues, with a smile on her weary face. ‘His final years were bursting with love, with smiles and with happiness and so many wonderful life adventures, all because of you.’
I choke back tears, but they aren’t tears of sadness like they usually are. I feel a warm glow, as if the great memories of Michael are finally smothering out the horrific nightmare of the accident.
Yes. It all makes sense.
‘We had some amazing adventures for sure,’ I say to her, standing a little taller already here in the rain. ‘We loved each other so, so much.’
Evelyn’s eyes fill up now.
‘Don’t ever stop loving, Rose,’ she tells me, shaking her head with a smile. ‘For as long as you live, don’t ever stop loving in the way you loved him. It’s what we are all here for after all.’
Her words hit me right in the heart.
‘We miss Michael, yes,’ she says, ‘but I know he still walks with me every day because someone like my son would neverleave me, nor will he leave you. He was loved and he is still loved by so many. He’s still in here, always.’ She points to her heart through her heavy red waterproof jacket. ‘So he’s never really going away, is he?’
My hands are stinging with the cold, but I’m too absorbed by Evelyn’s words to worry about the dropping temperature.
‘And he left us both, me and you, with hearts so full of love that should always be shared,’ Evelyn says. ‘If you can find someone to love like that again, if you can find someone to keep sharing all the same laughter and happiness you gave to my boy, please don’t waste it. He wouldn’t want you to waste it. You have so much love to give. Don’t ever hold that back, because my son would never want you to. When you show love to others, you are showing love to him.’
She hugs me, and lightly kisses my cheek.
