out beyond the breakers

I sat in the cool grass beside her as the cars passed us by. I had never noticed before but at the right time of day, 33rd can sound just like the ocean.

I was trying not to focus too much on the enormity of my mistake: I had let Dan leave me out there without a phone or a watch or any way to get help without abandoning her. Somehow I had simply trusted when I sent him back that he would return for us. And trust is not a quality I plate easily, or well.

The woman had become silent. I knew she was originally from Tootle. That her boyfriend dumped her the day before. She had been living with her parents but that seemed to be in question now. She complained of a phantom broken ankle. No kids. I thought to ask if she had a dog but then thinking about my sister, I decided it best not to.

She was skinny and hazy. I could have guessed her age but the range was wide, late 20's to mid 40's. Whatever was wrong was so wrapped inside a scratchy blanket of booze and drugs, it was the only issue we could deal with.  

Of course, I knew her without knowing her at all. The details of how and why they get here may change but they all become the same thing: disposable. This one so disposable in her own life she could stagger halfway across a busy parking with only the notice of strangers. They set down such clear paths of destruction one can almost see the burning bridges alight behind them.
   
At first, when a parent pointed her out to me, seeing to her had been part of my job. Then when I saw what she was she became my responsibility. 

I hadn't talked much to her as we helped her to the grass. I listened as coach Dan, much better suited to getting her safely to the ground than I was, talk her across the asphalt. Strong but soft and quick on his feet when it counts: I let him lead us both. 

I was still in the this is rather pointless phase when I sent him away. Thinking, there is no point in wasting more of his time, she's already dead and nothing we do over the next hour, nothing her family does over the next few weeks, nothing anyone does will change the ending. 

But alone with her, I settled into what comes after blind judgment: compassion and empathy.

I sat watching her breathe as the traffic passed in sets like breaking waves.  

I wouldn't have done this for my own sister. I would have been as cold and aloof as her male companion who sat high up on the bleachers tucked well removed behind the blue glass, pretending not to know her.   

And the reason one does that, why they stop showing up, is because they have run rescue so many times before they can't do it one more time. Not without drowning themselves. 

People like her use themselves and they use you. It breaks you down because nothing is ever enough. 

You do beyond what you can physically & mentally but they don't care, or remember, or an undercurrent of both. 

And unlike them, you have no shelter from their reality.  You can't squeeze your whole life inside a bottle like they can. I know, I've tried. 
I sat with all this 'knowing' rolling up and down on doubt.  She was swimming so deep beneath drugs and booze she had forgotten I was there. 

But once you make it beyond the brutality of the breaking waves the water calms. The roar of the surf dies down and if you aren't careful you can crack your thoughts wide open... I was thinking, this is not so bad, this is probably how it would feel to sit beside my sister's grave- if I ever get brave enough to do it. 

With my sister, I didn't quite make to the end. I let go of her only a few days before she died and I have never really forgiven myself for that- for being last. 

But as it turns out, if you time it just right, 33rd has a way of sounding like the ocean. So I stayed with this woman, someone else's sister, sitting out beyond the breakers. Giving us both one last chance. 

Floating on the hope that I wasn't as alone out there as I seemed to be.