Dulahan
Art by Trevor Nichols, Graduating Senior, Cumberland University
Author: Leonydes Matis
Gargoyle
Art by Trevor Nichols, Graduating Senior
Why Does Everything Happen In January?
I remember it was cold. The skies were a cool grey with that look of, “it might snow, it might not,” as I stood in front of the two-story, X-shaped building. I had been here several times before, visiting family and friends or going with my dad to take communion with fellow church members. The old two-story hospital, replaced in the late ‘90s by the shiny, off-white, eight-story Medical Center, still looked the same, down to the color of the brick. I opened the door and entered the familiar lobby. The high ceilings and large, two-story windows at the entrance of what used to be the waiting room were still there. The lobby was quiet and sterile, with a single receptionist at a desk that bore the name of one of the leading companies in the healthcare information technology industry. It was January 11, 2010, and I was there for the first day of my first job in the IT field. I was filled with nervous excitement. I was changing careers at (what I thought was a geriatric) 37 years old. Sitting in a cavernous space behind the main entrance of the building with multiple rows of grey fabric cubicles offset by a different shade of grey carpet, I began to meet my coworkers and learn about the job of supporting customers in the use of an application that our company developed to assist with the registration and billing of patients in a hospital setting.
During my time of work for the company, I experienced different life events, but the most significant event, to that point, came when we brought our son home at the end of 2019. My wife and I got married in 2009. We were both in our mid-to-late thirties. After about six or seven years of being unsuccessful at having children, doctors told us that we would most likely not be able to have children on our own. After careful consideration and prayer, we decided, in 2017, to consider adoption to grow our family. After waiting with an adoption agency for two years without being matched, we decided, in 2019, to consider fostering, and hopefully adopting a child from the foster care system. We started the foster care classes with AGAPE Nashville in mid-summer of 2019; at the end of summer, just a few days after we got approval from the state to be a foster home, our case worker reached out to us and told us that there was a child born in July who would most likely become adoptable very soon. She also told us they had us in mind for this child the entire time we went through our classes, but couldn’t say anything to us. After changing direction and being open to being foster parents, we were able to bring our son home just a few months after he had been born.
I took parental leave from work starting on January 1, 2020, to bond with our new addition. This new life, with his adorable little fat rolls, covered everything he touched with his slobber. It was a joyous time bonding with the chubby, smiling, “drool machine” who was learning to hold his head up; was fascinated by the lights and sounds of his toys; and loved to annoy Linus, an aging brindle colored Beagle-Bassett mix we had adopted from a rescue. These were times of laughter, sleepless nights, and dirty diapers. Spoons transformed into cargo planes that delivered food as they were on their final approach. I knew everything would change when I returned to work. And boy, how everything did change.
I had only been back at work for a week when management announced, “Everyone is going to work from home for two weeks”. COVID-19 had stopped the world, putting up a giant, “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign in flashing neon. Part of me was happy to work from home since my wife was still on maternity leave and we had our son at home. However, I soon learned this was the beginning of my house arrest. For three months, I had laughed and played with the chubby, smiling “drool machine” in the upstairs Bonus Room. Now, I was confined within the four beige walls of the adjacent room. I missed seeing my co-workers and interacting with them face-to-face. I have always been a person who craves personal interaction. But this was only for two weeks, right? And it provided more time to spend with our son, whose adoption we were able to finalize the week before Thanksgiving, 2020.
It was a mild day on January 4, 2021, when our company CEO made the announcement, via email, to all employees. The company was closing all offices worldwide, and everyone would work from home going forward. There goes the face-to-face interaction with my coworkers over the low walls of our cubicles covered in grey fabric. There goes the decompression time during a 30-45-minute drive home (depending on traffic), listening to talk radio or my favorite songs. I was stuck at home even after the world turned on the “We’re Open” sign. My wife returned to her office, and our son entered preschool. The house was quiet; the room’s beige walls got closer daily. The only sounds were of the robotic vacuum we called Smithers, breaking the silence every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, as it tried to consume a child’s sock and iPhone charging cables. I started to lose excitement about this job.
I took some days off work in January of 2023. My dad was in and out of the hospital. He had dealt with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder for quite a while after years of smoking. He had given up cigarettes several years prior. But after you smoke for nearly fifty years, well, it takes a toll. Beginning on New Year’s Day, he had been admitted to (the now not-so-shiny and off-white) Medical Center with fluid build-up around his lungs and heart. They drew off the fluid and sent him home. A week later, he was back in the hospital. His mother died from congestive heart failure, so I had seen this routine before. He was sent home on palliative care. The third and final time he was admitted, I drove him to the hospital along with my mother. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, so I was already off work. The overcrowded waiting room of the ER was stifling. People were sitting wherever they could find a spot. My mom and I took turns going back to see my dad. She returned to the waiting room, so I went to the triage area to see my dad. In the cold triage room, he told me, “Once I get outta here, I ain’t comin’ back”. One thing about my dad: He always kept his promises. He was sent home to hospice. Two days later, he passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family, in his favorite sagging, brown recliner that sat in front of the large picture window of the house he had shared with my mother since 1965 (the same house I was raised in). They were married for 71 years. Dad died on January 27, 2023, at the age of 92. We laid him in the ground on January 31 as snow fell softly from the grey sky. I remember it was cold.
I would say that the fallout from COVID-19 that created my imaginary prison made me start to dislike my job, but it was the death of my father that started making me consider what else I would want to do instead. While helping plan my dad’s funeral and meeting with the people at the funeral home, I thought that might be a job that I would like to do. My friends have said I have great empathy and a soothing demeanor. But I never thought about quitting my job to pursue a different career. Not at my age. Who would hire a 51-year-old with no experience as a funeral director? But then, sometimes, God will give you a little nudge. Sometimes, He pushes you off the cliff.
The morning of January 24, 2025, started just like any other. I begrudgingly turned on the company laptop in the beige, upstairs compartment that served as my home office. Two accent lamps combined their efforts to provide the warmest and most welcoming light possible from a soft-white LED bulb. I went down to the kitchen to get some coffee, allowing the computer time to boot up, then returned with my cup of hot Death Wish Espresso Roast in hand. I sat down in my high-backed office chair with the scuffed arms from when I thought my desk was taller than it is, and logged in. Not long after, a message appears in Microsoft Teams, “Do you have a minute?” That’s never a good start to a message from your manager.
When my manager’s face appeared on the screen, she was visibly upset. I tried to add some levity to what I knew was coming. “I guess this is a bad time to ask for a raise”, I joked. She managed a smile. The company was downsizing our team; several of us would lose our jobs. That was my last day working for the company where I had worked for the past fifteen years. Ironically, I was having a new computer desk delivered to my house that day, a fact that, when stated, caused my manager to begin crying again. I turned off my computer, sat quietly, finished my cup of Death Wish coffee, and headed downstairs.
Many events shaping my life’s journey happen in January. I don’t know why, unless it’s because I don’t make resolutions each year, so the year decides to do it for me. I spent time thinking about what I wanted to do next. My wife and I told people I was looking for a new job. Most of the leads I got were for IT jobs, which makes sense after working in IT for fifteen years. None appealed to me, knowing how unhappy I had become in that line of work. Even my friends working in IT are dissatisfied and wish to quit their jobs. After some deep consideration and people continuing to send me IT job leads, I reached a decision. I told my wife, “I no longer want to work in IT. I want to be a funeral director.” That night, she helped me look up everything you had to do to work in that industry. I talked to the funeral directors that I know at my church about it. I got my license to sell life insurance because (ironically enough) you can’t sell a pre-need funeral plan without a license to sell life insurance (I know, right?). We found a mortuary college in Nashville that’s been there since 1946, attended by almost every funeral director in Tennessee. I began the admissions process and was accepted for Fall 2025 enrollment.
So, now I find myself at a (not so geriatric) 53 years old; back in school and pursuing a career change. One that will provide the satisfaction of helping to bring comfort to families in a time of grief and the ability to help them honor and celebrate the life of their loved ones. Had it not been for the death of my father and losing a job I didn’t like, both events happening in January, I probably wouldn’t be making this change. And you probably wouldn’t be reading about it.
Why does everything happen in January? The reality is that it doesn’t. My wife and I got married in June. We moved to our new home in April. Our son was born in July. My time working from home began in March. Our dog, Linus, passed away in September. Why, then, do the January moments seem to be more impactful? Is it because life is returning to the ordinary after a time of thankfulness and celebration with family and friends during the holidays? Is it because it’s winter? Life, for the most part, is dormant in the winter. There is not as much light. The skies are grey, and the wind is bitter. It’s cold. I suppose the same can be said of an individual at times.
Perhaps, I will consider winter a necessary time of preparation for what is to come instead of a time of cold and bitter darkness. Spring comes, and thawing occurs. New growth emerges that will eventually be in full bloom. Flowers will display their colorful blossoms, adding their beauty to the landscape. Trees will grow outward and upward as they continue to strengthen and mature. Eventually, summer will provide bright sunshine and fresh air. This, in time, leads to inevitable change and culminates in the harvest of autumn. I suppose the same can be said of an individual at times.
I will experience different moments that provide direction, and in some cases, redirection, at varying times. I must pay close attention to all of them, not just the ones that happen in January, as they are all life-shaping. I cannot determine or predict when things will happen. I’m okay if they come in January, but I would prefer if they occurred in July, maybe at the beach, when it’s not so cold.
A Madness Shared By Two
The Week After Burial
Day 1. I’m cold.
Day 2. Waking and sleeping. Medicine. Sleep like death. Not close enough. I wonder things. Where did you leave the spare set of keys? I never needed to know this before.
Day 3. They keep bringing food, I keep saying “Thanks,” even though I know by 3 AM the lasagna will be vomit and toilet water swirling down down down the pipes and my throat will
burn.
Day 4. What was the last thing you saw? Was I the life that flashed in front of your eyes?
Are you here now, are you anywhere now, did you love me through the worst of it, and if I could say one last thing to you, have one last moment of truth from you, would I ask you if you fucked Amy from accounting?
Day 5. Your brother wants the X-Files collection. You hate your brother. He cried at the funeral though and anyway, I guess you can’t hate him now. Only past tense for you. “Hated” resolves it. He can have it.
Day 6. The room smells like decomposition. It makes me feel closer to you. What would you regret if you were here to do it? You have to tell me because you’re dead and dead things can’t lie. I don’t make the rules.
Day 7. Laughter. Cruel and unusual. I must be angry now. More medicine. Sleep like death. Closer. Time always passes.
Some Months Later, In Little Bursts of Time
Sometimes I hear your voice from the other room. I know that sounds crazy. Isn’t that a funny phrase? “I know that sounds crazy.” As if I need to justify myself to you, the one who makes me crazy by talking to me from the kitchen, three months from when your mother refused to meet my eyes after they lowered you into the ground. Anyway, when that happens it scares me, so please stop. When I’m ready, I’ll come to you. I remember our promise.
___________________
Couples holding hands feel like a personal affront. How could they not know? I pass a pair of them on the sidewalk before turning into the pizza place you didn’t like. A man with dark curly hair hands me the one-piece-of-pizza-heavy paper plate. He’s good-looking, like Brando in a dirty t-shirt good-looking. I hate him. My stomach churns with self-disgust. I sit in one of three empty booths and let the cheese burn the roof of my mouth, the hot bite landing in my gut like a rock. I can’t help it, I glance back toward Marlon, whose attention is on his phone. Probably in deep conversation with some starlet lost in the wrong decade.
He might have thought I was pretty once. Now I might as well be a ghost.
_____________________
I’ve walked past the gate a hundred times now. The first time was terrible. It’s bleak- the rusted metal, the screech I’m sure it would make if I pried it open. It took me weeks to go back again after that. Weeks of rotting in our bed that became my bed that I wish was yours instead.
These days I circle the block for hours at a time, always coming back to the gate, pausing and gazing my female gaze beyond the bars. There’s nothing there. Not yet. Sometimes I get stuck in time, pacing back-and-forth-and-back-and-forth-and-back-and-forth. My behavior might elicit strange looks if this were a different part of town.
Tonight I finally touch the gate – let my fingers slip through and feel the air on the other side.
I’m scared of you. Do you know that?
____________________
My phone has been dead for awhile now. No more messages. It’s peaceful this way, though it crossed my mind once that I must be jobless by now. That’s funny. I still answer to knocks at the door, for concerned family with well-wishes, to keep them at bay. They mostly mind their business. I think they perceive me as Grief and Grief should be left alone. Fine by me. There are no knocks tonight, and I don’t expect any. I hear the sound of you running the shower but you’re not and you haven’t and you won’t. Yet… laying in bed, I smell your just-washed skin. I almost feel the heat from your body next to me. The feeling surrounds me, petrifies me, convinces me. Yes, okay.
The room is awash in blue-gray twilight. It’s that time of the day when there is no fear of death because the heaviness of life is unbearable. My body feels like it’s trapped underwater but I move anyway. This time at least. I’m on my hands and knees scouring the floor under the bed. Well, it’s here somewhere. We should have cleaned this out before you died because I’ll never do it now.
There it is, against the far wall, just behind the twisted underwear leftover from a night you ripped them from my body. Or maybe they’re just from an overflowing pile of dirty laundry. I stretch my arms out fully under the bed, my ear pressed against my shoulder, reaching reaching, muscles pulling. Fingertips brush an old shoebox and I nudge it towards me.
I open it slowly as if I’m unsure of what’s inside, but I’m not. Just a little plastic bag of psychosis.
_______________________
My legs are heavy on this walk. The night is darker, as if the whole town has turned it’s eyes away out of respect. The thud thud of my feet on the sidewalk softens when I hit the grass in front of the gate. I can’t look up yet- I just can’t. Instead, I breathe in the familiar smell of rust, feel the give of the ground. A little autumn breeze touches my hair and some wind chimes somewhere. Deep breaths. Swallow.
I toss the empty plastic bag onto the ground and watch it dance away on the wind. It feels good to do a bad thing because, fuck, it doesn’t matter at all.
My fingers wrap around the bars, feeling the old flaky texture rub against my skin and I push. The gate gives against my weight and screeches in a tantrum. I slip inside.
In a sense, the garden is dying – the flowers planted by a loving hand are long withered, no one to tend to them, to keep them going, to pretend they have a purpose. But it’s also as alive as it ever was. Just not in a way that draws human visitors. Good riddance, really. The overgrowth and weeds, the insects who can survive and thrive are plenty alive. Even the rust that eats at the metal – what else can eat but something living? Death comes for everything – but it’s not death that has to stay here in the mess. What lives takes over what dies. What lives consumes it, covers it, eats it up, and survives from it. We forget the dead things. But not you. I won’t let it happen to you.
I walk towards the back of the garden where the darkness deepens, and my eyes adjust quickly -not much light in my life these days – to take in a bench with chipped paint, grass growing up around the legs, a silent observer of the cycle of life and death, not totally untouched itself. I feel afraid. That you’ll come, that you won’t. That I’ll never leave this dark place again, that I will.
Nevertheless – here I am. I’m making no moves, but I’m somehow in motion, toward the bench, where I sit and wait. Days, or hours, swirl around me. Colors and sounds mix and melt and fade, and my thoughts pass by until I think nothing, want nothing, feel nothing anymore. And then, there you are.
There you really are. Not a shadow or sound of you but your full form, wearing your favorite black sweatshirt and blue jeans, smiling at me, alive as I am. Which is to say, just barely. I keep my gaze straight ahead as you sit down next to me. The weight of the bench changes. You’re right here. You’re right fucking here. My breath quickens and my heart speeds up. I clench and unclench my hands as my palms become clammy. So much life coursing through me- I don’t like this, I don’t know what to do, what should I do? My entire body is reacting to yours, the way it did the first time we touched, but this is different. This might be wrong. I hear you sigh, and I know your eyes are on me, but I can’t look at you. If I look, we’re in this. Whatever this is, however you’re here.
Then I feel your thigh gently press against mine- that slight pressure of human touch that’s been missing for months. The little spot that warms while the rest of me stays cold. You don’t speak. I don’t think I could handle it if you did, so maybe it’s a relief. The lump in my throat is unbearable and I gasp out a noise like a cry. I don’t recognize the sound. As tears spill out I turn my head with effort, and look you in the eyes. They’re blurry behind the wetness in my own, but they are there and they are yours and they are drunk with love for me.
___________________
I’ve come back every night for weeks, expecting each time for this to be a mirage, but it never is. You’re always here. The street outside the gate is gaining it’s own little garden of plastic bags. I imagine this veil between us is more intrusive than we want to believe. Often it’s raining as we sit together, and that’s when I most notice how my senses have transformed. My aliveness is a stinging reminder of our separation. I smell the grass, the rotting flowers. I taste the air on my tongue. You don’t seem to notice any of it at all.
Sometimes I reach out and let my fingers graze yours. Mine are freezing cold but yours are just there. You don’t notice this either. We haven’t spoken. Maybe you can’t. For me, there’s too much that words could break. Sometimes as I sit with you for these hours on end, my stomach rumbles- yours never does. Your body makes no sounds at all. I started bringing apples so I could sit with you longer. Maybe I hope you’ll ask for a bite. No, of course not.
What good is this reunion when you have no touch, no taste, no words? I can’t help but come back because despite it all, I know you’re there. You always see me and the look you give is always the same. Longing.
___________________
Tonight, my body feels strange as I leave my apartment, on my way to you. My limbs are almost concrete, I’m moving so slowly. I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen sunlight- I’ve become nocturnal. I grab a bruising apple and my magic bag.
This time as we sit together, I have a compulsion to lay my head on your shoulder. My muscles are tired enough that the fear of rejection- or worse- doesn’t stop me for once. The fabric of your sweatshirt is soft and almost warm. Your shoulder is solid. If you would only lean into me too, it might all feel so real. At least you don’t disappear, which relieves me of my worst fears. I close my eyes and take you in. Hours roll on and I don’t even notice the hunger this time. And then, to my surprise, I feel something light on the back of my head. It’s your fingers, and they’re running through my hair.
___________________
This is the last time I’ll see you. We both know this somehow, and so you reach out to me and hold my hand. My temptation to break the silence is unbearable but my sense of dread is unassailable. I’m so tired – my bones feel hollow, disappearing. Before I came here tonight, I looked in the mirror for the first time in ages, compelled by a strange need to confirm that I still exist, I guess. The knocks at the door ended awhile ago now. Everyone’s gotten the message and left me alone. That’s how it should be. But now that I’ve become the sort of person who’s only companion is the ghost of my dead lover, I have to wonder.
Turns out I’m still here, mostly. But my hair is falling out. My lips are dry and white, and you could drown in the deep dark circles under my eyes. Yet here we sit, and you’re still gazing at me with reverence and a glint of something else. Not love anymore. There’s a searchlight behind your eyes- something seeing past me. I understand. I know how it will go. Okay.
I lay back on your shoulder and let you touch me gently. Your breath comes in deep sweeping continuous motion, and I try to match the pattern. But my lungs burn and my own breath is made of quick and shallow bursts.
Here we are at the end. How do you feel? You’re feeling things now, I guess. What’s it like? I don’t remember.
Lifting my hand to my mouth is a herculean effort. I use every bit of energy left inside me, to bite my apple one last time. Not from hunger – that’s long been gone – but as a final confirmation. It’s ash in my mouth. I hand the fruit to you and you take it with ease. You touch your tongue to my bite. My vision is fading, but I hear your sharp intake of breath. I imagine the way your eyes must glow.
I wonder if you thought I wouldn’t notice when they stopped seeing me – when they only saw the tiny bit of life within me- that life that was so small, so diminishing. How did you find it at all? How did you know it was something to steal? Anyway, I did notice. I knew the game. It’s just that I agreed to play and lose a long time ago.
I sink down until I’m sprawled over your lap. Your body is warm, warm, warm. Your hands run up and down my back in a smooth sliding motion. You smell my hair, you kiss my head. As my limbs stiffen, everything turns to dust inside me. Returns to dust, returns. From dust you came, from dust you shall… But not you, my love. Not you. As you pull away from me, my body hits the hard bench and loses the warmth of yours, although I don’t notice it much. I see your silhouette as it walks toward the gate. It is the last beautiful thing I will ever see.
And you will live forever.