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“I just never thought of how painful it could be.”

“What is that, exactly.”

“You know, losing that person that defines who you are. Not by who they are, but by being that one being that you can share everything with. I shared my heart with her. To put it in a cliché we laughed, we cried, we shared it all. I can’t remember, or think of a time when we weren’t together, or I wasn’t thinking of her constantly. And I can tell myself that she’s gone, over and over. I can say it eight times, nine times, and only on the tenth will it hit. And the burning, constricting throat will choose to flare up at that moment, my eyes will water, and the grief washes over me again.”

“Does it ever get any better? It’s been three years, has it gotten any better?”

“Logistically you say three years. It doesn’t feel like that. Sometimes it feels like it’s only been yesterday that I was in the hospital with her, smelling her scent and touching her for the last times of my life. Others, it feels like a hundred and I’ve almost forgotten what she looks like. I almost wish for the latter days more often, so that stabbing hurt - that empty painful center would go away. How could I want to forget the most important thing in my life, no matter how much it hurt?”

“Is that why you agreed to the documentary? To remember?”

“Yes and no. We’d always videotaped our life. Not just important events, but the small moments. There is a clip on the video of me walking around with the camera. I’m just naming objects in our house. ‘Here is the cat bowl, not like she’d ever eat out of it. Here is our refrigerator, full of pictures of friends.’ I make my way down the hallway, into our bedroom, where you can hear singing from the bathroom. I take the camera into the bathroom with me. Her head peaks out from behind the curtain, and there she is, that face I’ve kissed a thousand, hundred thousand times, smiling at me.” A small monitor is showing said clip:

“Get out fool. No cameras allowed in here.”
“It’s been in here before.” I zoom in; a poorly painted palm tree is hiding a breast I know by heart.
“Yes, but now I want privacy, so get out.” Yes, she’s serious, but only just so. She’s laughing, and I’m grinning. It’s all in fun. I zoom back out, capturing the wet curls sticking to her face.
“Tell me what I want to hear, and I’ll leave.”
“Please get out?” She’s mocking me, she knows she is. I step forward and you can see my hand try and pull back the curtain. She grabs for it, a delighted squeal coming from a face that is straining to hold some dignity, and not quite making it.
“Wrong answer, tell me what I want to hear or I’ll show the internet your naked wet body.”
“No one but you would want to see my naked wet body.” She is still grinning, but I can see her insecurity even if the camera doesn’t catch it. All you can see is this woman with a mocking smile and laughing eyes. It never surprises me how much we don’t even let ourselves see.
“Don’t worry, I’ll tag it with ‘Naked Paris Hilton Shower Sex’ and then everyone will see what I do. Now say it.”
She laughs. She laughs and it hurts my heart; both now and then. I love her so much, past and present. Then I swelled with love. We had eight long years as lovers, and ten as friends. Ten years of knowing this person and I still got excited at the first kiss of the day, the pre-sex make out session, the fact that she and only she could make coffee that tasted like Starbucks, at home.
“Well if you put it like that.” She mocked at thinking expression, her curls making her round face look boyish, yet still undeniably feminine. Her eyes bore into mine, to the camera she is looking off to the left.
“You are the reason I wake up. Every day, every night, there is one thought on my mind, and that is you. I love you is such a mundane term, love being a mundane emotion, that I cannot use it and justifiably feel I have communicated the amount of emotion I feel for you. Now come here so I can show you.”
I set the camera down on the counter, away from the badly painted palm trees. Steam is shown rising up from beneath the tile top. Giggling and long silences are all that are needed to hint as to what is going on now. She was right, “I love you” just doesn’t cut it.

“What did you mean by yes and no?”

“Oh,” laughs, “I’m sorry. Um, I guess what I meant was, yes I wanted to remember. But no, that wasn’t the reason for the documentary. As I said we’d always videotaped our lives, so I wasn’t too likely to forget. But we’d discussed our next project nearly 5 years ago. We wanted to do a piece on grief, especially that experienced by someone after losing a person close to them. What we really wanted was a couple. Unfortunately that was out of the question. I mean, no one is going to let you film them go through the most painful experience of their life, right? So we’d pushed around the idea for maybe six months, making up lists of the subjects we needed to pursue as far as that particular documentary would go, questions we’d ask at specific times, etc. But we couldn’t find any takers. Then Kim was diagnosed with breast cancer, and we both knew the subject would be me.”

“Did you automatically assume that she wouldn’t live, or…”

“We didn’t assume anything. By the time she had gotten the test results it had already spread to her lungs and lymph nodes. The prognosis wasn’t good from the start. The doctors gave her little time.”

“I just can’t imagine what it took for you to want to film someone else, to then filming yourself. I would have to say I couldn’t do it.”

“Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t easy, I’m not saying it was. The way the whole thing went down is we had talked ourselves a really good film, but I was chickening out. I didn’t want the whole world to see what I was going through. It felt like my insides were ripping. She was very calm. She knew she was going to die, and that was okay with her. I think the hardest thing for her was knowing what I would be going through after she passed. I’d never had anyone close to me die before, unlike her. Her parents went at an early age, and all but one of her four brothers had died before they turned twenty-five.”

“Still, how did you eventually start it?”

“Since we had taped pretty much our lives before hand, both of us being in the profession we’re in, it’s not like we had to start. I brought the camera into her consultation and into the appointment with the oncologist, and during her surgery for the biopsy. The only problem we had to work out was how to keep taping after she was gone, because both of us knew I’d probably quit and choose to wallow in my own pain.” (Laughing, though the eyes and brow pull in tightly.)

“I’m sorry; you just seem to be stating this matter-of -fact.”

“I’m sure I’ll cry soon. If you pinched me hard, it could come sooner.” Laughing again, this time interviewer becomes slightly more relaxed, crossing her legs the other way.

“No, that won’t be necessary. I’m sorry for prodding, I’m sure this is hard for you.”

“It is, but I’ve cried a lot. I’m sure I’ll cry a few more times before we’re done here today, but given the subject matter, you could hardly blame me. We’re just not at a part that is too painful yet. I’ll let you know when we get there. I’ll ask for a box a tissue, or I’ll start berating someone famous. That always makes me feel better.” Smiles at interviewer rather mockingly, not apologizing for her remark.

Laughing. “Well, alright then. Let’s just keep the Tom Cruise jokes to a minimum, I’m sure he’s somehow connected to this network, and we’d hate to piss him off, right?”

“I only have one Tom Cruise joke, and I have such a bad singing voice, that it isn’t worth repeating.”

“Alright, I won’t ask then. Where were we?”

“You were asking me painful questions, probing me to relive my most hurtful memories for advertising dollars.”

“Ah, yes. Well then. Let’s get back to that, shall we?”

“Yes, Lets.”

“How did you continue filming after she died? I mean, it’s obvious from the film that you had a camera person, but was it someone you knew beforehand, or did you hire someone to do it?”

“No, it wasn’t a stranger. The camera operator most of the time was our good friend Tom Metzger. He’s been with us for so long that he was practically family, although his relationship was always professional. We never even exchanged Christmas gifts. I think that’s how he was able to stick around so long.”

“The film is spaced over the last three years, isn’t it?”

“Well, this last year we’ve been editing, and trying to piece together all the footage, so it’s the first two years after her death.”

“I’m sorry, that’s what I meant. Did you stay as professional during those two years, or have you grown closer since?”

“Obviously we’ve grown closer. I shared the worst experience of my life with him. He’s seen me at the very bottom, though he wasn’t like a friend. He was an objective observer, always filming, and never missing a beat.”

“In the film, it shows, a few times he didn’t stay as professionally distant. He puts down the camera.” We pan to a clip being show on a small monitor again.

Here we see the camera moving steadily down the hall. The operator has a nice handle on it, and his footsteps are evenly placed so the motion of his steps aren’t over exaggerated . From the hallway he turns left, the space opening up into a large kitchen, modern in design with stainless steel appliances, large counter spaces, and a large double door refrigerator covered in black and white photos. The photos are not professional, snapshots of friends, couples, dogs, kids, places. The room looks well organized and clean until the shot moves to include the subject of the film. A woman of medium height and build, short black hair with cowlicks spread every which way, takes over the scene. Her name is Rainy and is the subject of the film. She holds a glass tumbler and for a second seems to contemplate it as if it’s an object she’s never seen before. Then she looks at the camera and you know the contemplative look didn’t mean she didn’t know what she was holding, just that she didn’t know where and how hard to throw it. Her eyes are hollow, and her face tight. She’d be pretty except for the obvious language her body and posture is giving out. It says “Do not fuck with me today.” Here you see the camera hesistate, just a small movement from side to side. The cameraman thinking, should I stay and get the shot, or should I go and save my hide? Before he can decide, the haunted womans lips draw back over her teeth.
“This is not fair.” Her voice is wavering, betraying her true feelings. Not of harsh anger, but overwhelming sadness.
“What’s not fair?” The cameraman’s voice cuts through, seemingly unconcerned. His accent is somewhere from Europe, but he’s Americanized enough to where it sounds like any other Americanized European. Bored.
“This, all--”, she chokes back a sob, struggling to hold everything together. The camera shows a date of 8-30-2004. “this.”
“What is not fair?”
“She, she should be here.” Her voice is cracking now and tears are easily flowing. Her shoulders slump and she looks around lost. But her grip is still strong on the glass, her arm giving the only hint that something is going to happen. “I said, YOU SHOULD FUCKING BE HERE!!” And, screaming the last sentence, she throws the glass against the wall. It characteristically shatters, sending colorful shards across the morning lit kitchen. The woman and the shards fall to the grown, but only one wails, only one being alive and animate to show it’s pain, it’s hurt. The glass does not cry, but its violent end has become another reason for the woman to scream, and that she does.
She wails in fact, not sobbing or crying, but more like a physical manifestation of her grief. Her body is rigid, her hands turned into clutching claws, covering her head that hovers over her crossed legs.
“Fuck, why?” This she chokes out amidst half screams. Spittle drops onto the ground, the camera lens zooming forward to catch even this little show of tragedy. You think, he’s very good, if not concerned. But then the camera is set on the floor so that the woman is on the outer left hand corner of the frame. You see worn vans sneakers step into the frame followed by strong, dark haired calves. Tom the Camerman has left his objective post and chosen to comfort his grieving subject. He sits behind Rainea, her hands still frozen over her hunched form, rocking herself and wailing. He puts strong arms around her waist. He must be very tall, as he could easily consume her, hold her whole body on his lap, but he does not. He merely puts his arms around her waist, interlocking his fingers as if it were any other day, and rests his chin on her shoulders.
“I know. I know. My kitten, my love, I know.” He whispers this mantra over and over, and though it seems stupid, even rehearsed, it calms her down very slowly. She relaxes, but not into him, more onto herself. He kisses her shoulder, stands up. You see him walking back towards the camera. He picks it up without bothering to turn it around. It slides up his body and for a moment you can only see the black of the clothing, then the blacker shade that tells you this clip is done.

Sighs and the sound of a cigarette being lit. “Can I offer you one?”

Rainea shakes her head, a black lock falling in front of wet eyes. Her eyeliner does not run. “I never started the habit, in fact, I can’t stand the smell of smoke.” She smiles in a pained sort of way.

The Interviewer coughs, snubbing out the untouched stick. “I’m sorry. I seem to be saying that a lot to you. Did you want to go on, or take a break?”

“It’s okay, no – don’t worry, really. All smokers assume that everyone smokes, or doesn’t mind. I will go on.” She peeks over the top of the clipboard the now smokeless woman is holding. “You do have more?”

“Ah, yeah, haha, I’m afraid lots more. You’re sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine. Go on.”


“Lets go back to before Wendy died. What were your thoughts just about her dying? And not about the documentary?”

Hesitates. “I- I really don’t know. I mean, I think I know how I feel, but most of that is a blur, and I can’t really remember what was going through my head. Not thought wise. I remember being in physical pain. I would sit by her, and brush her hair, and smell her skin. I wanted to remember everything. And once she would fall asleep, this pain would start in my chest. I called it my little pain bubble. And it would expand. If I didn’t allow myself to cry it would always be worse. I held a lot it before she went. I wanted her to think I was strong, not the complete mess I knew I would be, or was. It was just a disaster, going through that.”

“Were you there at the hospital all the time?”

“I was at the beginning. Later on, I think, out of her own shame of being pitied, she would send me home. I used to just sit in the Cafeteria for hours when she’d send me away, but then it became more often, and I’d just go home.”

“What did you do there?”

Laughs. “I’d clean. I mean, the baseboards, the corners with cobwebs, the space under the sink. I even organized our kitchen drawers so that all spoons were in one drawer, forks, knives, so on. I’m weird that way.”

“But during the last few weeks, as the documentary shows, you were at the hospital 24/7.”

“That was hard. I never had any experience with someone that close dying. What do you say? What’s the right thing? How do you tell them that you’re scared, and frightened, that you wish they’d stay, or that you could go to? I have no tact, or moral compass on questions like that. I just stayed quiet.”

“You never came clean?”

“Only with the camera.” Points to the screen. “But I think she knew that I was holding a lot back. I was just so scared. Losing someone – I mean, that close. It’s like cutting off an arm, or a leg. It was like constantly holding back a murderous scream. Hell, not like, I was constantly on the verge of screaming.”

“You’ve edited this beautifully, with just the right amount of humor, sadness, and then of course, the videos of your life together. I can honestly say it brought me to tears as much with the “happy” shots as it did the sad. How does the film affect you?”

“It’s surreal. I am in a sense watching my life, only chopped up enough to fit in a half hour. I wish I had the soundtrack to go by as I was actually living. It would eerie but fitting to have “Tomorrow Wendy” playing while she was in the hospital.” A tired smile plays on her lips.

“So it doesn’t seem real to you?”

“Not really, no. When I watch our tapes at home, it’s real. I think anything that has to do with me as a single person it just unreal to me. I still see myself as a part of a couple. I’m not over her, and either I will or I won’t move on. I accept her death, but my pain is still there, and I still feel her all around. They say time….” Waves a hand ‘You know the rest, don’t you?’

“Well I can’t thank you enough for being here Ms. Preston.” She holds out her hand and the Author gives hers in a return. “I’d wish your movie to do well, but it seems like my wishes would be belated.”

Smiles, genuine this time. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”