A Well Staring at the Sky: A Graduation

Read Part 11: A Death Foretold — Part 5

On the week of my high school graduation, a 35lb raccoon died in our attic and started to rot. It was the early June and the Texas temperatures were already reaching 100 degrees. The smell became unbearable and our house unlivable. I moved in with my Aunt for the week. She lived nearby and had a guest room that I stayed in more often than I stayed in my own room. I felt safe and happy in her house. It was located near the highway and I would listen to the cars racing past which, to a romantic city girl, sounded like waves rushing up the sandy shores of beaches.

I did a lot of laundry the week of my graduation. Everything I owned smelled of decaying raccoon and she and I laughed together as I busied her washing and drying machines with my malodorous laundry.

At night, I would lay with the window open and the window air conditioning off relying on my room’s ceiling fan revolving in steadfast circles and a breeze from the window to keep me cool. My bedroom window was located directly on the front porch, so I could open the window, lie on the bed, and talk through the screen to my Aunt who was smoking in the rocking chair on her porch. Sitting there with her, smelling the sweet cigarette smoke wafting in those soft and wiry Texas window screens, is how I will always remember her. Like a Catholic confessional booth, I would confess my sins and ask for guidance.

One night, I asked her about love and relationships. After taking a draw from her cigarette, she said that relationships were about balance, but rarely did they ever strike a perfect 50/50. She counseled that as I grow up and live into my relationships with others, I should understand that feelings sometimes ebb, but with the right person they also flow back. Your partner will also feel that same ebb and flow and you have to prepare yourself for moments where they are unable to give you all of themselves. Instead of being taken by surprise or feeling hurt by that person, you have to understand that as their tide ebbs yours would need to flow to help create stability and balance. It may become a 40/60 balance for a period of time, but with the right person the scales would eventually reset and at others times that person would need to give more towards you when your tides were ebbing. She said that this was hard to find in someone because we’re taught that real love is constant and remains the same. That, she said, is the biggest lie of all. If you can’t understand that all love and relationships have to evolve with time and circumstances, then you are setting two people up for failure.

Laying in bed with that screen between us, the air cloudy with cigarette smoke, I knew what it meant to truly trust and know someone. She listened and never judged. She advised, but never pushed me or dumbed it down to make it easier to hear. She trusted me to be intelligent and know myself. She told me she would always be there for me.

Read Part 13: A Death Foretold — Part 6