“Amazing, and occasionally scary.” That is the phrase used by a thirty-something Edinburgh resident to describe the neighborhood. The amazing part didn’t appeal to me quite as much as the scary did. It was my first solo night in Edinburgh after my Mom and brother left to head back to Boston, and I had been wanting to explore Leith as I heard it was younger, hipper, and a bit more lively than where I was staying Merchiston.

Port ‘O Leith was my destination – a local bar recommended as a great late-night haunt. It was a Monday, so I didn’t anticipate a lively evening. As soon as I walked in, the smell of stale beer and too much whisky permeated my nostrils. The lighting was dim. Worn embroidered pillows adorned the benches lining the exterior wall. I smirked. I could appreciate this place.

I ordered a cider and snagged a seat at the window box. I noticed a few books scattered on the sill and figured worst case I could do a little reading. Upon settling with my beverage and perusing the books, I was instantly gut punched. Two bindings of Calvin & Hobbes filled with comics and drawings and stories. The tears started building and I was taken back to six months prior…

“It would be SO funny if I were Hobbes and you were Calvin.”

“But it wouldn’t make sense. I’m so tall and so furry - Hobbes. And you are cute and little and feisty - Calvin.”

“Please, please, pleeeeeease! Really I just want to wear a onesie out in public...”

“Of course you do, my little monster.”

We weren’t able to utilize that silly Halloween costume idea. You and the band decided on a group costume - professional wrestlers - and in retrospect I’m glad you got to dress as the Undertaker, who was a childhood crush of mine. It was hot.  I wore a wolf onesie, so I still got my way. But I digress…

I began flipping through the comics, all the while you, and that conversation, coursed through my veins. I quelled back the tears. The memories were sweet but the pain was so raw. Visceral. Slicing. At this point I was so accustomed to crying in public I generally didn’t flinch when tears began to fall, but the small group behind me noticed. And then I noticed that they noticed.

I got it together in time for them to invite me to join their table. Grateful for their compassion and kindness, I accepted and began chatting with Katie, Sarah, and Sir Jacob.

Sir Jacob bought a round of drinks for me and Katie as Sarah had run off to see her self-proclaimed “friend with bennies”. I learned Katie was a single Mom of a 9 year-old, and Monday was her one free night a week. I learned her ex had been terribly abusive, the physical manifestations still visible in the form of a large scar that cut through her left eyebrow. She spoke about her son vibrantly, and her desire to give him the best life possible was evident in her tone alone. I instantly liked her and her quiet confidence.

Sir Jacob was anything but quiet and was vocally fighting his own demons, attempting to mend a strained relationship with his wife. He detailed the last year as “the worst of his life” as they lived apart and struggled to effectively communicate after twenty-two years of marriage.

I never really did get the full story as to why Sir Jacob was called, well, Sir Jacob. He may have been an actual knight, but from what I picked up it had more to do with a friend accidentally carving off a piece of his shoulder in some sort of hunting accident. That latter seemed more likely given his demeanor and immodest, but kind, exterior.

I grabbed everyone another round of beers. Sir Jacob looked at me sternly when I sat back down. “Is there a man back in Boston I should have a word with…?”

I whipped my head around to meet his gaze, head-tilted and squinty-eyed.

“Why were you crying?” he asked.

I looked around, somewhat frantically, searching for an out. I half expected you to saunter up to the table, appearing at my time of need as you so often did in life. Instead, I rambled.

“My person died on Thanksgiving and we both loved Calvin and Hobbes and the books…”, the words cascading out of my mouth before I even had a moment to process what I was actually saying.

Katie grabbed my hand in a moment of familiarity; the gesture had an exclamation point at the end of it.

I started talking. And I don’t think I stopped, save to answer the occasional question. First I told them what happened to you, the logistics of losing you. Because it’s technical, more literal.

But then I started talking about you. About your energy and about your light. I detailed the guttural connection we had, one that was evident to both of us from the first moment we met. I crooned about your touch, and your kindness, and how one of my very best friends from home described you as a “gentle giant.” I told them that home was wherever you were, and how the hardest battle I have ever fought in life was not actively following you to where you had gone in death… 

I told them how I planned this trip I was on not only to escape the monotony of life without my person, but also to find ways to stay close to you by poking holes in my paper bag. By doing and seeing things you would have been excited for me to do. That if I ever had a number one fan in my life, it certainly was you.

By the end of my spiel, we were all in tears, the three of us holding hands in a symbolic circle of unity across a pub table. Both Sir Jacob and Katie looked at me as if I were an other-worldly creature having crossed the universe in my shuttle, only to land at a pub in Leith.

“How are you even walking right now, let alone traveling around the world?”, Sir Jacob asked. “You are a seriously bad-ass human. ARE you human!? ”

I simply did not understand their confusion, but accepted their comforting hands and words with as much grace as I could muster, albeit with that quizzical head-tilt.

“You are 3,000 miles from everything you know, but your home…well, he’s on a spiritual plane you can’t travel to yet. And I’m telling you right now Kelly – do NOT try and find that plane. But you’re here and you’re walking and talking and spreading this love that we can physically feel.” Sir Jacob wildly and empathically gestured to himself and Katie, as well as the rest of the bar who at this point had been listening in on the last few minutes of conversation.

Cue more tears. And a group hug. And then a sing-a-long of some sort. It was the most random Monday night I’ve had in quite a while. You would have liked it.

I think of Katie and Sir Jacob often; about their resiliency and their ability to humanize grief in a way I hadn’t experienced. There was love in that bar, Port ‘O Leith, and it wasn’t scary. It was amazing.