Author's Note: The conclusion to "Always Enough." I really love that the movie fleshed out Junior's character and I hope I did her justice. At the end of this is a sort of poem/stream-of-consciousness that emerged from writing these pieces. I really worked on my landscape descriptions here, so let me know if they turned out well :)
Thanks for reading!
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Alma Junior was lulled by the rhythm of her trek; pebbles crunched under her boots, the crisp air filled her lungs with a heady freshness, trees shading her path, making her shiver in the chill mountain morning and rub her hands together around the urn she carried. You want me there by sunrise, Daddy, I'll be there by sunrise, she said. The ash grey of the sky melted into a pink-tinged blue, shadows lazily gathered in the join between the lodgepole and the earth, and the birds started to stir, a few notes fluttering in the air like strings plucked in an empty room. She found the spot easily, set down the urn carefully, leaning it against the log, laid down her bag and got out her bottle of water, settled into the damp, malleable grass and pulled out an envelope from her jacket pocket. The script was carefully written, but mostly faded after the ten year wait in the lawyer's office.
Junior,
I love you to pieces, little darling, and that aint gonna stop just cause I'm not around no more. Thank you.
The beginnings of a knowing smile twitched at Alma's mouth. She fingered the paper, held it up to the light and watched the rising sun glow through its well-worn creases, an image of her mother flashing in her thoughts, quickly pushed away. Alma had seen the hard, glassy look in her mother's eyes more times than she cared to remember, and neither she nor her father needed it today. She whiled away the day by telling her father stories, relating Francine Jr.'s latest anecdotes; how she would never fall asleep unless Kurt held her, how she still called Alma "amam" even though she knew better, how Kurt insisted on re-making the bed every day because Alma just couldn't seem to get the corners right. She explored the meadow, smelled the fecund secrets of this place, touched the crumbling bark of the trees, began to feel a bodily understanding of why her father wanted to be here, began to see why he always had the look of the mountains in his face, the wind in his body. Wordless knowledge percolated through Alma's thoughts like rainwater through gravel, purifying as it traveled, until it was distilled into its simplest parts.
As the day wore on, lavender bled into the sky, giving the sun a blood-red glow as it slid soundlessly behind the horizon. Alma stood by the river, urn in hand, and opened the second envelope from her coat. This missive was more hastily written, the ink relatively fresh on the paper.
Junior,
You done a good thing for me today. I know that everything don't make sense right now, and after much thinking I decided I ought to tell you why. If you decide that you want the answers your mamma won't give you, its all here. But I always want you to remember this day you spent with me, because it meant more to me than most of my living days.
Alma replied, as if this were a conversation, "You don't owe me nothin', Daddy. Besides, I think enough people done passed their judgments on you already. Whatever you done, you done; that's all there is to it." Alma took a deep breath, allowed the paper to slip through her fingers and into the rushing waters, watching the current sweep her father's confessions into the distance. You know I understand, she said quietly. She held the urn in her two hands, saw that it was a vessel holding the remains of another vessel, and knew that the part of her father that had been too large for every room he entered, too large for marriage, was free in this wild land, with its lush plains and ocean deep skies. Alma judged the sunset to be at its most brilliant; it verged on descent, flirting with the mountaintops, and the sky blazed like the fire of heaven, golden and red flames skirting the surface like the writhing slicks of oil on water. She scattered the ashes, humming the lullaby her father had taught her when she was but a baby.
"I'm so glad I could bring you here, Daddy." She bit her lip, blinked through tears that were anything but straightforward. And there was no more to say, because Alma understood what was truly important in this life and the next: her father's love, and that's all there was to it.
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There are beginnings, and there are ends. There is life and death, love and loss. Sometimes, though, it is the simplest answer that defines a moment, defines a lifetime; and only when we have found all we are, can we be free.
When is it enough to love, enough to speak? When is it enough to be true, enough to open the deepest place of ourselves? When is it enough to be silent, to be apart? When is it enough to live truth, enough to find the beautiful imperfection of life?
The moments of our souls, the flashes of our humanity, and the aching beauty of our existence weave the fabric our beings; all that we touch is changed by us and we are changed by all that touches us; we can no more remove the day from the night than we can sadness from joy. We are, we are… and always, always are we enough.