After the funeral, we pack my things into two bags.
One for my clothes.
One for the special things.
Everything else stays behind.
People keep saying things like, “You’ll be okay,” and, “At least you have your dad.”
But I don’t want “okay.”
I wanther.
Dad tries.
He makes pancakes that are too runny, and he keeps forgetting where we keep the bandaids.
But he reads to me at night, even when I say I don’t want him to.
He sits outside my door when I cry, pretending not to hear. But I know he does.
After a while, I start calling his house “home.”
After a while, he doesn’t feel like a stranger anymore.
After a while, I stop waiting for her to walk through the front door.
But I don’t stop missing her.Ever.
2
The break up
Coevey Bay
NOW
2nd January 2025
Age 24
It’s times like this I miss Mum the most.
Wishing I could call her. Hear her voice. Hear her tell me if I’m on the right path.
I remember when I was little, and one of my friends started to pick on me. I don’t think she was ever really my friend to be honest, but I still wanted her to like me. I didn’t understand why at the time, but Mum used to say, “People show you who they are, againand again. But sometimes, we lie to ourselves.”
I did that back then. Just like I did withhim. I kept looking away, hoping he’d change. Hoping the man I once loved was still in there somewhere.
“It’s easier to hold on to who we want them to be, instead of who they really are.”
She said that too… and she was right. She always was.
I got tired. Tired of pretending. Tired of squinting through the hope.
Tired of ignoring the truth that’s been there all along.
And when I stopped looking away, I saw him. Clearly.
