Savannah Ucha--The Sun and The Sea

It isn’t until the clearing of trees, wet and happy from the recent rains that have come down on Santa Barbara, that I can finally see the top of the mountain. My legs rumble beneath me, threatening to give out. With the sun shining through at its peak, the hand before me unrecognizable, the leathered skin sprinkled with sunspots so foreign, signaling a life long lived. The power of the sun reflects through the vast ocean’s surface, a mixture of blue whiteness speaking to me, commanding me to stay as my own life ebbs away. My breath comes out stilled, slow, ragged, as it hurts to breathe in the smells of fresh greens, the strength of growth around me painful to take in. So close to the very top of this mountain, I almost scream at my legs to take me further. Unresponsive to my growing desires, they remain planted, right here where the sun lights me up, filling my core with its beauty. Come on. Almost there. In a moment of force and utter stubbornness that only an old man can conjure up, I take another step despite the burning in my bones.

I didn’t make it to the top; rather, I find myself on the ground, the mud and earth welcoming, soft and cold beneath my body. The branches of the trees sway above, almost speaking a lovely song. One reaches down, pushed by the gentleness of the breeze, licking my cheek with its tender touch, saying hello or, maybe more fitting, saying goodbye. If I had the strength in my arms, they would reach up and grab the branch, in a desperate attempt to take what life force it has, bringing it to the ruins of my aged body. My body sinks further into the earth at the thought, the anguish maddening. The stray pieces of grass curl toward me, in a horrific welcoming.

At the sight, I am no longer a man diagnosed with lung cancer; I’m at the peak of my life. I’m strong, so very strong I can take on anything, conquer everyone. I’m not struggling to climb up a hill, but running through them, allowing the branches to scrape the bareness of my skin in a quiet dominance. My voice is not hoarse and weak, but powerful and deep, commanding a group of executives to follow my will, my course of action for the given assignment. I feel the soft eyes of one hundred employees gazing down on me, their look of vague terror and submission no longer there, instead just a pitiful hold as they realize how very human their commander has been, laying here in a bed of tranquil loss. I feel the careful hands of my children, their attempts at picking me up, stirring feelings of a hurt love. The warmth that rushes up my chest is struck with a sudden ache of pain when I think of how I failed them. I whisper their names, a conjuring of strength and weakness.

Delilah. Nathaniel. Lydia.

The hands of sweet Delilah are nowhere to be found amongst the small hands prodding me to get up. Darling Delilah, who hasn’t picked up in years, whispers of her success finding their way through distant relatives. The salty tears that rang down her delicate skin as a child, my lecturing of greatness and disapproval. Oh, how badly I wanted her to be someone, to do something great.

“She’s a force in this world, just like her daddy,” the smoky voice of my late ex-wife finds me as we’re sitting down having lunch in a fancy café serving overpriced gluten-free French pastries, sitting in our veiny chairs intertwined with black-and-white patterns. I can taste the buttery flakes of approval in my mouth again, along with the pang of my oldest daughter being just like me. The saddening satisfaction of her ruthlessness costing me a relationship with my eldest daughter.

The disappointment of Nathaniel finds me as I make out the feel of his big, childlike hands prodding me to get up, to hold on. He’s here again, his hands rougher, older, filled with a tangy yearning for my approval. The sweetness, pureness in his eyes sickening as his voice, so like my own, begs me: Dad, get up. His body is adorned with his finest suit, in a fashion so uniform to my own outfits. The shadow of his tall stature looms near my soon-to-be corpse, so alike to when I was young, ambitious, shaking hands and laughing loud where everyone in the near vicinity would be forced to hear my rumble of power. A vision of my younger self before me, I can only think of how unafraid of moral consequences I was, where my inner compass was guiding me to the side of the fence filled with glory and paper green, using and taking from everyone to get there. The twinkle of Nathaniel’s blue eyes, shrouded with a hope for reassurance never given, so unlike my own. A man on paper, a perfect copy of his father—but what a lie that is. What a grasp for approval and praise from me, so unable to give it. Why couldn’t I give it?

With Nathaniel’s body over mine, his knee on the muddy ground, I so desperately want to tell him how okay he is, how fine he is, how he no longer needs to chase my approval by becoming the mess that is me. How very fine he is as a man. Instead, the words that spill from my mouth make a mess over us.

“Don’t lean over me. You’re getting your suit dirty.”

At my words, he regresses back to when he was ten years old, where I can see his eyes filled with disappointment and hurt. In all his giving, nothing is enough. That very disappointment makes my vision murky, where I see Nathaniel morph into the little boy I used to be, kneeling over the aging body of my own father, afraid to cry, afraid to show him how scared I was at the thought of him leaving. My body writhes all over again, racked with so much disappointment reflected onto the pureness of Nathaniel. Oh, how disappointing my dad was. Oh, how disappointing I am. The little boy before me, wounded and afraid, hardens my heart, an icy shell forming over me.

It isn’t until the fiery hands of little Lydia tap at the layer of ice my body is encased in. The softness of her head comes into my frame, the murkiness dissipating as I see this small girl brimming to the core with adoration and defiance. The brilliance of her mind shines through to me as her tiny arms wrap around my frail body, her love poking me with the terrible pain of unconditional love and acceptance. So unafraid of my never-ending flaws and mistakes, this soul of beauty and wisdom hurts me in such a way I’m afraid to leave this earth. The sweet light of her brings a tear to my eyes, something repressed and hidden away, my tears shed onto the soft ground beneath me, mixing in with the mud. Her hug is not a command of strength like the touch of the other children, but a chilling will of acceptance, an invitation to let go.

As the mud starts to dry, the dirt will fill my lungs, choking me with the memory of perfect Lydia. The summer before her freshman year of college, she interned at my firm. Within the first month, she snapped, pushed to the edge over my berating her because of a mistake in that morning’s coffee run, ordering one of the lattes with 2% instead of the whole milk that my business partner requested. In the middle of the conference room, filled with the heads of powerful men, she threw the tray of coffees down, a mess of browns and blacks reaching forward, staining my leather shoes. “Get your own fucking coffee next time,” she seethed, her eyes filled with rage and a wild fearlessness only a reckless young woman could contain. In her storming off, I barked at someone—anyone, really no one—to clean up the mess. The surprise of such disrespect toward such a domineering presence overtook the room. It wasn’t until I left the conference room, striding over to my own private office, closing the door behind me, that a smile broke out on my face, a shiver of pride running through me for the woman I raised, fearlessly running through the world.

The childlike hands leave my body, the memories so real, so visceral, of a life filled with a reluctant fatherhood, commands of my own right way forced down onto so many. It was never enough, nothing was ever enough. Only now, as the presence of my three children fades away, their absence emptying in a way that tells me how much they were enough. The bitterness of guilt makes my stomach churn, a desperation filling me. The weakness in my arms tingles as my hands grip the ground, the dirt making its way under my fingernails. They frantically search for something, anything to tell them how much I repent, how much I regret. The words finally escape me in a breathy sigh of release and love, the words I wish my own father had spoken to me.

“I’m sorry.”

With no one around to hear it, I look up at the gentle trees, trusting them to carry my message to them. With a weak smile, I feel my body sinking as the ground takes me in further. As I slip away, away, further down, down—I can only make out the soft hues of blue, green, and white. The beauty of it all is so warm, so threatening, so real. My eyes close in a quiet acceptance of my fate. The sedation of serenity filling my blood as I finally accept everything as it is, no longer forcing what I want it all to be. The feeling, so sweet and fragile, I hold onto it with my teeth, biting down as the earth takes me as far as it wants to.

Savannah Ucha is a university student from Los Angeles, California in the United States.

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