The Dust of Our Bones: Pt. 2

All of life was held within the stretching breath of a moment and there was no room for questions. It was all settled inside like sun rising every morning. This was life and all was as it should be. Childhood unraveled in the rhythm of long summer days and wondrous winter nights and abundance was found simply in what was before you.

But time walks steadily on, making changes to all that makes you certain. The earth shakes under its footfalls and everything you trusted starts to rattle.

I'd been through little quakes in my life: friendships ending over petty differences and the forming of new friends, moving on from one small thing to the next one, graduating high school and leaping tight-gripped into the future, making all your unknowns as wide the universe itself.

But then Grandma got sick. I fumbled my way through helping care for the woman who once cared for me. The reversal of roles felt as natural as the turning of the seasons; and yet so unbearably cruel.

She died. And the threads that held my world together split at the ends, slipped into dark, and suddenly life seeped out edges I didn't know were there. I can imagine the terror of a hurricane without ever considering first that the ocean had borders.

Life went black. Time stopped, perhaps only to assess its damage. Death—rather, the reality of death—slipped in through the cracks left behind, settled there quite comfortably and grabbed a hold of every electrical current that dare form a thought.

I am going to die. We are all going to die. What is the point? Why does it matter? I am going to die. I am going to die. I AM GOING TO DIE.

I sit to read a book and enjoy a sentence—I AM GOING TO DIE. The comforting smell of coffee rises to meet me, and I go take a sip—I AM GOING TO DIE. I laugh with a friend who's been with me through the hard days as we share an ancient inside joke—I AM GOING TO DIE. It does not matter what gift life has prepared to give me; death comes quickly to commandeer it.

I am a sad, muffled thing, shuffling sideways through a life that keeps tilting. I am embittered by change and bored with the sameness. I believe in nothing. What is the point of believing in anything? For I am but a whisper, a faint echo of a thing reverberating off walls that will only be left empty.

One year passes. I have hardly cried, have hardly mourned, but I keep itching at that black that runs deep within the girl who's always been seen as sweet. What would people think if they only knew this tortured being that lies deep beneath the surface? I try to hush it and it only whispers louder as I try to sleep.

I am trying to help others along the way, offering advice and kind words when I can. I see a flicker of hope dash across their eyes and for a moment, hope stirs in me, too. But it is fleeting. For one mad line comes blitzing into my brain: They are going to die, so what is the point?

Yes, silly me. Death comes to capture us all.

I hear Bob Dylan is coming to a casino about two hours from where I live. Some excitement picks up bravery and rises to the occasion, reminding me of a dream: to see Bob Dylan live in concert.

With the generosity of two parents who know how to give good birthday gifts, I was set to see him. The day dawned, and I was as excited as I had been in a long time. The month was October. It was swirled with the colors of Auburn and swelled with a concoction of emotions. The month of my birth and the month of Grandma's passing. The urge to celebrate and to grieve clawed at each other for space within the cooling days of fall.

Before I left to see Bob Dylan, dizzy with anticipation, a thought lingered—simply a reminder that despair refuses to give up. "You are going to die soon," the voice rattled, shot through my brain like a torpedo. I cried. I was exhausted.

No matter. I pushed the thought aside and went bravely onward.

The night bustled about me and smelled of beer. There was an attractive security guard who took his job seriously, verbally pouncing upon anyone who dared to bring out a cell phone. The chairs were pushed so closely together I felt claustrophobic. The room was filled with humanity from all shapes and shades, every age and every color swirling into a mosaic of fandom. They were all strangers and yet none of them were unknown to me.

And there he was, that tight mess of a man sitting at his keyboard with his iconic curls whispering out from beneath his black hat. His familiar voice—that same unique, jittery thing that everyone in that room knew—echoed out into a microphone. He sang the words I loved and unraveled the stories I'd come to know. He was Bob Dylan. Ha. BOB DYLAN.

Tears sprang into my eyes as the words from "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and a dozen others filled the room—the songs I knew and could sing along to. I started to move my feet. But I was suddenly stilled.

It was Bob Dylan up there. He was older, nearly my grandfather's age. How far had he come since his days in Greenwich Village in the 1960s? He was an aged vessel and yet sitting inside the dust of his bones was the story that everyone in that room loved. How dare I call anyone—myself included—a whisper? For in each of us is a thunder, a magnitude of a bold, affecting story.

Oh, how deeply it runs.

Something bit at my skin from the inside out until I had chills. Tears continued to well in my eyes. For the first time in a year, I felt connected. No one in that room was a stranger. We were united, pulled into something bigger than ourselves and placed strategically into an important part of history.

I was part of something, part of a special unfolding of a kid who believed he could, so he did, wrapped up in the histories of a man who did what he loved.

I remember fondly the moment of connection I felt that night. And while those dark and haunting thoughts were not permanently abated, they quieted. I knew I had a choice, then: to press into the thoughts whenever they came or boldly press onward into a truth—we are all here for a purpose. The times truly are changing. But we are worth it.