Gone again…

He was gone again…gone as suddenly as he came...she shouldn’t feel so bad…this was not new at all…he’d just stayed a little longer this time…they’d talked a little deeper…laughed a little louder…sang a little higher…but it was no different than before…no big deal…she’d live through this as well…one by one they seemed to leave….some left her physically…some emotionally…did not know which was worse…with him, it was both…really, no big deal…
She could picture him…beige shirt…khaki trousers…back pack…calm and relaxed…only his tossled hair gave away his impatience…very much the outdoor person…rugged yet sensitive to the most minutest of her emotions…alive to the smallest details of nature…
The images he took always left her struck by the way creatures responded to him…kinda the way she did…he could get into her head and ease out her thoughts….get her heart to beat so loud that he could hear it…he always captured the gentler side of even the most ferocious creatures…they did not seem to be disturbed by his presence…like he was one of them…he in turn photographed something more than the tangible…he caught something in their eye or the slight movement of their head and the straightening of their ears as they listened…and he listened along with them…engrossed in their world…he smelt the deer’s anxiety…he smelt her fear…he heard the rustle of leaves…he felt the breeze carry the danger…he also heard her heart yearn for her child’s safety…he heard her mind calculate their chances…and that’s the unconditional love he caught on camera…the fear of losing someone you love so much…he could have focused on her struggle and her sacrifice as she fought and then surrendered only when she knew her baby was far away…but no…he caught the moment just before…that moment when life’s purpose becomes all too clear…that moment in which you are revealed…
She held the photographs in her hand and felt so proud….his pictures will never appear in magazines…he would not let them…in them, he said, was a part of him and he’s never sell himself for money or fame…they were alike – him and her….in more ways than either would ever admit…
She wondered when she’d hear from him again…he’d just got up one morning and decide to leave…having no idea what it did to her…why do they always warn you they’ll not be around…why do they then become a part of your life…its just an escape route…a convenient way of getting out of a situation when you’ve had enough…that may be true of others but no…not him…if he knew what he was doing to her, he’d never leave again…
He was a rare kinda creature…she already missed him…but it was a quite type of missing…it was not the type that your eyes and hands felt…it was the type that your heart and mind feel…
She never worried about him when he was away…she had faith in him…and a strange quiet attachment...she looked at the deer again…into her eyes and in them she saw him…the deer knew what she meant cos she’d felt it too…
To love so single mindedly…to love with that clarity and purity…the deer saw it in his eyes just as he had seen it in hers…