Platters upon platters upon platters scatter the kitchen table. Eight bags of chips. A box of Mountain Dew. A box of pastries. A tupperware container of home-baked cookies, still crumbly enough to fall apart in your fingers. A platter of fruit. Cheese and crackers. Food doesn't numb the pain, the reality of the situation. It makes addled brains clearer and stumbled thoughts organize themselves under the pretense of you are okay, you are prepared to deal with this. You are taking care of yourself.
I'd prefer not to feel. No thank you, I'm not hungry.
"This is all normal." They say, and I stare at the rain bouncing off the surface of the previously glass smooth rain. When I woke up this morning, the sun was shining brightly. Within hours it began to thunder. It beats down hard against the Earth. Cleansing, or it would be, if I were feeling. No thank you. "Not wanting to move, not wanting to eat, not wanting to shower. This is all normal. Everything you're feeling is normal."
Nothing about this is normal, I think, but I'll keep that to myself. This is the tragic movie scene that projects across a large white screen in a dark room. The actors don't really feel it, so why should I? (But I do and it aches.) This is something you read about in the newspaper. This doesn't really happen to you and your family, not in your boring lives in Somewhere Suburbia, America. Your life is not tragic and you could have it worse. But this is happening. This is tragic. This is happening to me and my family and my body is aching with the stress that my mind can't handle quite yet.
It's hard to understand why somebody would do this. Why somebody would take the beautiful aching freedom of life into their own hands and end it. It's hard to understand why we aren't good enough, why all of the wonderful things around us aren't good enough to keep people alive and hopeful and happy. They don't. They don't see the glitter in the sky or the magnificent colors floating around in the air. Their lives are black and white and now they are non existent by their own hands.
I wasn't done with you, yet. You didn't get to see yet. You are gone now. Now what do I do?
i'm sorry... my condolences aren't enough. i love you madison, even if we've never met. i don't know how someone could end a life, but i do know that when something ends another something starts. you are brave, strong, wise beyond your years and you'll pull through. you're amazing and just remember to breathe. if you need to talk (i've lost a few family members and weathered my parents bitter divorce) you can call me. i'll be on AIM tonight too.
ReplyDelete- hally. (but if you could call me by my given name, emilysophia, i'd really appreciate it... i'm don't really go by hally anymore).
Thank you so much, Emily Sophia, your sentiment means a lot to me. Everyone's does. I have a bunch of support from the people in my life right now, people that I thought previously never wanted to speak to me or be around me ever again. It fills me with hope and happiness despite this time of sadness and I know my family and I will pull through stronger than before. Like they say, what doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger.
ReplyDeleteIt's just tough right now. I'm angry, and sad and shocked. I'll get through it with the help of those around me and with the guidance and love from the Universe... but I have to grieve first.
Also, I'd love to talk to you, but right now, it's looking like I (and twenty-thousand other Minnesotans attached to Xcel Energy) won't have power at home until Tuesday and Monday and Tuesday will mostly be spent dealing with the to-do's of my father's body and things. When we get power, though, I'll be sure to let you know.
Thank you, Emily Sophia. It means a lot to me.
Madison, I love you, and if there is anything at all that I can do, please, please tell me, and I'll do it.
ReplyDeleteAnd you go one moment at a time.
☼♫♥☺
Thank you, sweetheart. I'll let you know. Thank you.
ReplyDelete