Author: Phillip Dukarsky

She asked him if he believed in magic. He didn’t have an answer; it’s not a common question. She asked again, and he replied the best he could. He said he doesn’t believe in magic; he believes in possibility and opportunity. She laughed and kissed him. It was a good kiss, passionate and tender. The kind of kiss that made the park bench beneath them and the trees around them feel romantic.

He was caught off guard and she followed up with a simple question: “how about now?”

Before he could answer, he heard a man’s voice in the background. Before he could focus on what the voice said, he could see the man – her father – approaching them from the other side of the park. As he tried to figure out what to say, he was cut off. Her father did not even give him the courtesy of a “hello” or a glance.

She stood, shell-shocked, face to face with an angry father whom she knew disapproved of the man she secretly loved. Her father had found her the perfect husband. The one who would bring respect to their family name. The one that would make a good woman out of her. Promises had been made between families that could not be broken. After her father finished scolding her and ordered her to leave with him, she froze.

He looked at her father and her and tried to interject but it was too late. She left, following her father into the darkness of night, leaving the love of her life standing alone surrounded only by his regrets.

Weeks went by with no words. He thought about her but she thought about him more. She thought about her family and everything they’d been through. She thought about how much her father had sacrificed and everything he’d done to provide for the life she lived. Then she thought about the man she loved. The one who did not believe in magic. The one who promised possibility and opportunity.

Years went by and she took her newborn baby out for a walk in that same park. She and her husband had moved away but were visiting her father so she decided to return to her special place. As she and her stroller rounded the corner to the bench she knew all too well, her heart stopped.

There he was. Her long-lost first love was still there. He sat alone on the bench, lost in his thoughts. She cautiously approached him. His eyes lit up when he saw her. Suddenly the trees felt more majestic and the air felt cleaner. She sat down and they caught up. They laughed, they smiled and they stared into each other’s eyes. Just like old times.

Then the awkward moment came, the one they both knew was coming. This time, however, he spoke first. He asked her a simple question: “do you remember when you asked me if I believe in magic?”

She was caught off-guard but nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a photo of his family. A beautiful wife, two gorgeous kids and him, with a big smile. She was stunned.

“I absolutely believe in magic. Thank you for teaching me how to see it.”

He then kissed her on the cheek, got up and walked away, disappearing into the distance.

Everyone always says the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If that’s the case, then what is the road to heaven paved with?

Do people with evil or murderous intentions trip one day and fall into saving orphans from a burning building?

I’ve never understood that phrase. I find it to be insanely cynical. It instantly demonizes people who try to do good and care about helping others. The world makes it hard enough for those few idealists who try to help others with zero thought for their own gain. With that phrase, these folks may as well not even bother because they’re already the bad guy just for trying.

In a past life, I knew a guy named Ramy. He was one of these tried and true idealists. No matter how hard the world made it for him, no matter how cynical life was, he was undeterred. He ventured on.

He always went out of his way to try and help. Many times to his own detriment. If he could do something, anything, to help another person, he would. He never asked for one thing in return. I’d ask him sometimes – what’s the point when his goodwill would always go unnoticed and would sometimes outright backfire?

His answer always stayed the same. The point is the act itself. The point isn’t to get recognition and isn’t to only do things with guaranteed results. The point is stepping up when everyone else steps aside or has better things to do.

I’ve seen him stand by people long past their expiration date. People that everyone, me included, had given up on. He never gave up on them and always stood by them, pushing them to take a better path. One of those guys is now a nurse in Waterloo and helps people for a living. Another did 7 years for manslaughter before getting killed in Fort Mac in 2016 in a drug deal gone wrong.

No matter how good or bad the percentage of success from his good intentions, Ramy never wavered. He always meant well and always put others first. I envied him in that way. As much as I try to always act with the best intentions, like most humans, I’m fallible and sometimes cynicism kicks in. These days more than ever unfortunately.

I thought of Ramy this week when I went to see the new Superman. The movie is about staying true and good in a world desperate to prove you wrong and drag you down. Hope amidst cynicism. Humanity amidst greed. Light amidst darkness. Different medium but the same lessons I took from Ramy.

I haven’t seen my friend in many years and am not quite sure what happened to him. He’s never believed in social media, and I’ve lived several different lives since our paths last crossed. Nonetheless, watching Superman I remembered him.

Like Superman, Ramy never stopped trying. He always pushed forward. No barrier slowed him down. No matter how much the world tried to drag him into the mud, he always stayed above it.

I’m not a religious person and don’t necessarily believe in the afterlife, but one thing I am sure of is this: I don’t know where Ramy is or where he’s going. It might be hell, who knows? But if it is, it won’t be good intentions that got him there.

What I remember most are her eyes. To say they shone like diamonds would be an understatement.

They weren’t diamonds; they were floodlights. They lit up the whole room and everyone in it. Their spark was contagious, and they were only a glimpse of the boundless joy for life that oozed from her.

Next came her energy. She took the ordinary and made it extraordinary. She took what otherwise would go unnoticed, like a teardrop in the sea, and made it the only thing that mattered. At least that’s how I felt. Whenever we talked, I felt like nothing else on earth existed. She was there, she was present, she cared.

Then she’d run off mid-sentence and jump into Kennebec Lake wearing nothing but her denim jacket and a mischievous smile. And that jacket, I could never forget that jacket. It looked like it came straight out of 1965, but she made it timeless.

It kept her warm when she spent four months in the Australian outback bartending to get by. It turned heads when she strutted through the glamorous streets of Monaco without a care in the world. It was a comfy pillow while she hiked the Kungsleden Trail in Sweden and slept under the stars.

That jacket went with her everywhere she went. It was by her side when she walked away from her job for good. When she left to find herself. When she left all of us behind to chase what was ahead.

The next time I saw her, she could not stop talking about those six months backpacking around Southeast Asia. She talked about the struggles, the excitement, the extreme highs and bottomless lows, the nights she couldn’t remember, the nights she wished she could forget, and the days she truly understood who she was. Riding on the back of a motorcycle without a care in the world and following her whims wherever they took her.

Free. The only way she knew how to live. It was the time of her life, until the next time of her life happened. And they didn’t just happen; she made them happen. She ignored every inhibition, lit up every moment of every day, and never settled.

Being with her felt like walking through a hurricane and staying dry. Like anything and everything is possible.

Anthony Bourdain once said, “Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”

Except in her case, it wasn’t just her body; it was her whole life. I’ve never met someone who enjoyed the ride as much as she did. Someone who rode every ride in the park and then went back for more.

The last thing I remember is taking a red-eye flight to Scotland. On a cold autumn day we buried her, along with her denim jacket, in a small ceremony outside of Stirling. A flame like hers is never meant to last forever and can only withstand the wind for so long.

But that flame still burns. It burns deep inside of me and everyone else who knew her. It burns where even the wildest wind can’t extinguish it.

“287 metres to go,” read Sgt. Bunker’s fathometer as he slowly descended deeper and deeper into the Pacific Ocean. His oxygen was getting low but he was determined to reach a depth never before encountered by man. His crewmates waited impatiently above water, led by Col. Rodriguez, the youngest woman to ever command a crew that qualified for a job this big.

Bunker could feel himself getting anxious but knew panic would be the end of him. He had to control his heavy breathing to not waste air and had to hold his hands steady to avoid the jittery shakes of nerves. Every time he doubted himself, Rodriguez was there in his ear whispering motivation.

“I believe in you Tom,” rang in his ears at every meter as Rodriguez waited nervously. The two of them had been lovers in the past and had overcome lots of turmoil to reach this point – a productive team accomplishing something that had never before been done. As Bunker’s fathometer read “10 meters” to go, he knew he was just about there.

Rodriguez had a vessel waiting for him deep in the ocean. Once in it, he could truly explore the ocean’s great mysteries. As he finally reached the vessel, he could finally relax. He got to the door and tried to open it. It was locked. Bunker tried again but it wouldn’t budge. He started panicking and screaming into his earpiece, “Elizabeth, I can’t get it and I’m almost out of oxygen. Elizabeth, help!”

Rodriguez casually turned off the radio to ensure no one heard Bunker’s pleas for help and then whispered into her earpiece, “That’s what you get for cheating on me, enjoy dying cold and alone in the depths of the ocean.”

Tom Bunker. September 12, 1981 – July 15, 2019.

He waited. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours and each hour felt like an eternity. She told him she’d be there, she swore. He believed her. Maybe he was too stubborn and maybe he just wanted to believe that someone cared enough to show up.

Every person he saw in the shadows looked like her and every step he heard in the distance sounded like her black, ankle-strap heels. As his wait reached the 3 hour mark, the sad realization that he should’ve known all along finally hit him – she wasn’t coming. Just like the night before and the night before that. She was never coming but he’d still wait for her. How could he let his last chance true happiness just fade away without a fight? He wasn’t going down like that.

Every night he continued to wait longer and longer. Every night his hope faded just a little but not enough. He wasn’t giving up. Not on her, not on himself and not on love. Her voice still echoed in his ears and it’s a sound he could never let go of. No matter how long he waited though or how loud the voice, she didn’t show up. She never showed up.

They found him there two weeks later. A sad old man, laying by a grave. Dead of a broken heart.