Poignant glimpse of a life unlived

By Julie Myerson, FT.com site

Published: Jul 07, 2007 

In a lovely little town right on the very most eastern edge of England, there's a small wooden bench that looks straight out to sea. It's not like all the other benches, jostling for space along the cliff walk with their happy plaques commemorating Olive and Fred or Ken and Betty - all those countless high days and holidays, retirements and golden anniversaries, long and contented lives lived out and loved in this windy, blue-sky place.

This bench is different. It's been there a couple of years now, maybe more - I can't remember exactly when it arrived. But I do know how it felt to see it for the first time. I remember it was a shock to come across it, so stark and pale in its newness and with its heartbreaking, carved inscription. It stopped me in my tracks.

Because, unlike the other benches, this one doesn't make you think of laughing, long-married people eating ice creams with their grandchildren. Instead, this little bench tells a tale of a loss so devastating that you can't walk past and remain unchanged. Glance at its inscription and, even if you've read it before, you are assailed, your heart is grabbed. Even thinking about it now, I am plunged into sadness, dragged off to a place where, mostly, I'd rather not go.

Sometimes, because of this, I avoid the bench. Sometimes I'm just too busy (or too happy) to face it and I turn away from the cliff path and instead head straight down the steps to the beach. Or else I remember too late that the bench is there and have to cut laboriously back across the High Street, up the hill and down to the sea that way.

Other times, though, I'm almost glad to have to walk past it. Sometimes, on black windy nights, taking the dog out along the cliff after a long day writing, thinking, struggling with life's sad, ordinary messes, I give the bench a long hard look and let some tears come. Sometimes there's comfort in doing this and sometimes, really, there isn't. Sometimes I'm not even sure who I'm crying for - them or me? I can't do it for long, anyway, because the dog soon comes trotting back, curious to see why I've stopped. And so the world starts turning again and we walk on.

And then there are the other days when I'm not really thinking about the bench at all. Then I might saunter slowly past, innocent, mindless - only to find myself plunged straight into its world. Then, the air around me goes brown with sadness and a heavy weight presses on me for the few quick seconds it takes to pass. I emerge the other side of that dull grief cloud as quickly as I can, glad just to gulp the blue air and be alive.

Some days the bench is lonely and bare. From far away it looks no different from all the other benches. But on other days there are flowers attached - small bouquets with notes on, tied with string and wrapped in cellophane. Once there were tight, yellow roses that started off fresh and pretty, only to get slowly battered by wind and rain, turning brown and sodden and sad. Other times, like last week, for instance, children's crayon drawings are tied there - energetic, vivid, protected by plastic. These small offerings flap there in the bright sea breeze, somehow unbearable because the person they're done for can't see them.

Or can he?

The man died in his early 30s. He must have known he was going to die because he had time to choose the words. He left behind two small children. We don't know how small but we know their names and we know his name. And we know that he will never, ever stop loving them, because that's what he says, here in clear carved letters for all to see, on the bench.

This tiny but potent sliver of information haunts me. Sometimes I long to fill in the gaps. How exactly did he die? Where's his wife? Is she all right? Is she coping? How are his parents managing? How old are the children now and do they remember him? And what exactly do they expect me to feel, these people, as I walk past? Do they think that I - or anyone else - can make it past this little bench without being stopped in their tracks?

And, yes, some days I do worry that, more than sympathy for these strangers, it's my own powerlessness that haunts me most. The fact that I have to read these words again and again and yet can do nothing. The fact that there's nothing I can say, no help I can offer these people, no way I can start to feel better about these strangers whose grief is so bravely catalogued here.

In winter, the bench is cold and rain-stained and people huddle on it, oblivious in their anoraks and fleeces, to eat their fish and chips. But right now, in high summer, the air up here is peppery with wild fennel and the glittery shadows sliding over the sea make you catch your breath, and I think that there could be worse places to be remembered, to leave your last words, to declare such undying love.