Future Imperfect
Dear Rachel,
More on tenses… I’m still having trouble with them. I suppose I always will.
I hate referring to you in the past tense. “Remember when Rachel caught a fish and had no idea what to do with it?” “Hey, didn’t Rachel go to South America that year?” “Boy, Rachel sure could throw a baseball.” “Rachel loved Amy like a sister; no, more like a best friend who happened to be her sister.” “Rachel came to visit last winter.” [Unspoken: And she’ll never come to visit again.]
It’s that reference to an immutable and forever removed past that hurts, I guess. All of the things you did, all of the things we did together, the things we said to each other, they’re all in the past and they’ll never happen again. Not only will you never again “catch” a softball with your mouth (“I said, ‘Keep your eye on the ball!’ I didn’t say, ‘…oh, and don’t bother moving your mitt!’ I’m sure the tooth will be fine; just put it under your pillow tonight.”), but we’ll never again get together and laugh about it.
As I neared middle age, I realized that I kind of enjoyed looking back at the past; after all, as one ages, one eventually gets to the point where one actually has a history to look back on. But you were so much a part of that history that looking back now is painful. There’s a big, ragged hole in my history.
But even having to think of you in the past tense isn’t as bad as the realization that, in addition to the past being hurtful, the future has been altered—irreparably torn like a piece of fabric come unraveled.
It’s the future that hurts the most, in fact. I find myself thinking of you in various future conditional tenses: “Rachel would have found a job by now; I wonder if she’d have decided to stay in Virginia.” “Rachel would have been 25 next February.” “Rachel would have loved this lake.”
It’s that “would have” that’s so painful; it’s a grammatical construction that’s by definition full of promise, now never to be realized. You can’t say “would have” without implying a loss of the future.
I loved you so much. I still love you, I’ll always love you, and tenses be damned.
Love,
Dad
More on tenses… I’m still having trouble with them. I suppose I always will.
I hate referring to you in the past tense. “Remember when Rachel caught a fish and had no idea what to do with it?” “Hey, didn’t Rachel go to South America that year?” “Boy, Rachel sure could throw a baseball.” “Rachel loved Amy like a sister; no, more like a best friend who happened to be her sister.” “Rachel came to visit last winter.” [Unspoken: And she’ll never come to visit again.]
It’s that reference to an immutable and forever removed past that hurts, I guess. All of the things you did, all of the things we did together, the things we said to each other, they’re all in the past and they’ll never happen again. Not only will you never again “catch” a softball with your mouth (“I said, ‘Keep your eye on the ball!’ I didn’t say, ‘…oh, and don’t bother moving your mitt!’ I’m sure the tooth will be fine; just put it under your pillow tonight.”), but we’ll never again get together and laugh about it.
As I neared middle age, I realized that I kind of enjoyed looking back at the past; after all, as one ages, one eventually gets to the point where one actually has a history to look back on. But you were so much a part of that history that looking back now is painful. There’s a big, ragged hole in my history.
But even having to think of you in the past tense isn’t as bad as the realization that, in addition to the past being hurtful, the future has been altered—irreparably torn like a piece of fabric come unraveled.
It’s the future that hurts the most, in fact. I find myself thinking of you in various future conditional tenses: “Rachel would have found a job by now; I wonder if she’d have decided to stay in Virginia.” “Rachel would have been 25 next February.” “Rachel would have loved this lake.”
It’s that “would have” that’s so painful; it’s a grammatical construction that’s by definition full of promise, now never to be realized. You can’t say “would have” without implying a loss of the future.
I loved you so much. I still love you, I’ll always love you, and tenses be damned.
Love,
Dad
posted by Rod at 1:54 PM
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