Memories Sarah M 24

Memories Sarah M. ’24

Tuesday, March 20th I pressed snooze on my digital alarm clock and stared blankly at the ceiling, eyes puffy and cheeks tearstained. I continued to believe it was all a dream, that I would wake up one day and he’d be alive. So far, nineteen days had passed, and it felt nothing short of a lifetime.

I felt like a black hole; gloomy, empty, and swindling the life of everything around me. Someone on autopilot just trying to make it through the day somehow. Someone who desperately wanted to stay in bed, unbothered and peaceful, sleeping the pain away.

Dragging myself out of bed eventually, I staggered to the mahogany dresser that took up three fourths of the closet of the room I inhabited. Glancing into my framed mirror, which had paint chipping off in every direction, I noticed my appearance for the first time in almost three weeks.

My face was red, shadowy ovals occupying the hollows underneath my eyes. It appeared that I had aged thirty years from that dewy March morning. Yet again, the lack of sleep was not helping my complexion in the least.

The shrinks told me it would stop hurting after a while, that I would learn to live without my father and grief is just a stage. “It will get worse before it gets better,” they would say, fake smiles plastered on their faces. Shockingly of course, I had listened to them in the beginning.

But as the days continued, their advice proved incomplete. The days only became longer, and the nights became lonelier. Accepting this, I longed to figure out a way to coexist with my numbing grief. So far, my plights for ignorance had proven as unsuccessful as the advice of particular mental health professionals.

“Audrey!” my mother shrieked from the kitchen, breaking my thoughts and leading me to open the door of my room. “The bus will be here in twenty minutes! You better be ready. No more missing school!” My mother, unfortunately, had not lost her hope in these certain specialists she made sure we saw at least twice weekly.

Rolling my eyes, I slipped into my school uniform, an itchy white blouse and hideous emerald plaid skirt, along with a sweater for the still chilly, not quite spring weather. I knew I would look and feel much better in the old gray sweatpants and holey t-shirt I had been wearing for weeks. They were my father’s, and I was afraid if I washed them, I would be washing away a part of him as well.

Trudging down the steps, I snatched an apple from the pantry and waltzed out the door, waving to my mother passingly. She was a petite woman, her face once so young and beautiful. Now it was the same as mine, worn and grief stricken.

“Oh, Audrey! It’s wonderful to see you dear,” remarked my bus driver, Shirley, as I stepped onto the bus. I attempted a smile as I made my way to sit in the back, but only came up with an awkward shift of the lips. Every eye on this golden vehicle dug into me, and passing them, I could feel the pity overflowing abundantly.

Plopping down onto the worn leather seat, I glared out the window to my house. It appeared fartoo empty without my dad. Ever since I was old enough for school, he would stand by the front door, rain or shine, and wave to me as I left. Now, the doorway was lifeless and a new, biting wave of melancholy ripped its way into my body and willing myself not to cry, I slumped in the seat.

The journey to school was an agonizing one, and as soon as Shirley parked, I shot out of my seat and rushed to the door, leaving my bus mates staring after me wide eyed. By the grace of God alone I made it to the bathroom before I burst, letting out shallow ragged breaths that screamed for someone to make the pain stop. To make me stop feeling as though someone had just ripped my heart out of my chest and chopped it up into eight million different pieces.

After some time, the pain dulled and I forced myself up, dabbing my eyes with a brown paper towel. I hoped I did not look like I had just cried, but I quickly dismissed this because that notion would be entirely absurd.

Before I knew it, I was in my first period history class, finding the seat reserved for me at the back of the classroom.

“Welcome back Ms. Blanchard, I’m glad you could join us,” smiled my history teacher, Ms. Jonas. Ms. Jonas, just like every other person I had faced the past three weeks, looked at me with that same, helpless pity that I hated with every fiber of my being. Who gave them the right to look at me like that? They had no idea.

“Would anyone like to share their plans for spring break?” she continued, probing the room for raised hands. However, as soon as she asked this question, another jolt of pain erupted in my stomach, and once again, I found myself battling my emotions to not make a scene.

Spring break, three years ago, my parents had decided to take me to Australia for the week to visit my Aunt Kristy. It had been one of the best weeks of my life, and one of my favorite times spent with my dad. Everything had been peaches and rainbows; there was no cancer or depression or death in sight. We had swum with turtles in the Great Barrier Reef, went to the dry wasteland otherwise known as the Outback, and even saw a show at the Sydney Opera House. But while remembering this time should have made me smile, I felt nothing but monachopsis in this classroom full of my ambitious classmates.

Somehow, I managed to make it through the day, avoiding conversations with friends I had shut out for fear I would infect them with my grief. It had all been fine until I came across the school bulletin, an article of me beside my winning painting pinned up among several other students and their accomplishments. The title read “Local Junior Wins Scholastic Art Award in Painting.”

I could not stop myself from sobbing, more or less in front of the entire student body. It was, after all, my father who convinced me to enter my painting into the Scholastic Art and Writing Award competition. It was he who held a block party when I got the letter that I had won. It was him whose smile shined brighter for the following two weeks, despite having just been diagnosed with terminal stage IV lung cancer. It was Dad who supported my art endeavors until he could no longer. It was him who had left me for the unknown world after death.

Suddenly, I felt a cold hand on my shoulder, and it was my mother, coming to pick me up from school instead of forcing me to endure another ride on the bus.

“Let’s head home hon,” she whispered calmly, leading me to the silver sedan she had driven for as long as I can remember.

“Before you say anything,” I choked out, hiccupping. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She sighed, taking out something from her purse. I noticed it was a letter. “I understand. But I just wanted you to know I found something from your father when I was going through his hospital bag today addressed to you.”

My heart skipped a beat, and I snatched the letter from her hand, her fingers long and slender. Piano fingers, fingers that fit perfectly into my father’s thick round ones. Opening the letter, my eyes welled with tears as I ran my own fingers over the loose-leaf letter, examining my father’s loose and messy handwriting.

Pumpkin,

I know that this letter, if it ever finds you, will be heartbreaking. I am so sorry for abandoning you, and despite the pain you are experiencing, I must say these words. Don’t let my being gone stop you from living. I know it hurts, and it will for a while. But I would never want to be the reason you never adventure or love again. I don’t want grief to become the only thing you feel when you think about me. Remember me. Remember the good, the bad, and the ugly. Remember all the times we spent together and focus on the amazing memories we shared. Grief is natural, and I don’t want you to feel guilty about missing me. But please, remember me. Remember the life with me, not without. I love you,

Dad

These words, words I would come to memorize over the years, hit deeply. Even though I was sad, even though I felt as though I was half a person, I had to follow through. In these last words, my father had reminded me that dwelling on a life we wish we had not only created emptiness but was unproductive. To truly come to terms with the immobilizing grief that paralyzed me, I realized that I needed to learn to start living once more. It wouldn’t be easy, and I understood that, but time would eventually, as it does, heal me.