I think though, based on the way I feel right now, she might have already taken my heart. And I think she might have realized that I’m holding hers too.
I remember how I thought just apartof my heart was tied to hers. Like it wasn’t fully in my control. But now it feels like sheownsit. I want to relish that, to treasure this moment and how big it feels. To be vulnerable like this—knowing our hearts belong to one another. But based on her current state, I’m not sure Ellie wants someone else to own her heart.
I pull her tighter against my chest and rest my chin on her head. Her sobs are quieter now, soft shudders racking her body. I realize for the first time that I still have my clothes on. They’re soaked, the weight of them more noticeable. What feels heavier though? Ellie’s reluctant heart in my hands.
I’m going to take really good care of this heart, I vow. Help her through hard times and figure out how to talk to her about these difficult things. I’ll keep it safe.
She’s going to have to pry it from my hands if she wants it back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ELLIE
Sometimes when Ithink about my mom it feels like I can’t breathe.
Like grief took a physical form and decided to hold me underwater, forcing its attention on me as if it’s gone too long neglected. Forcing me to fight it. To struggle for my own breath.
And sometimes fighting is really, really hard. Too hard.
I haven’t been able to fight it today—haven’t even been able to get out of bed. I don’t even know what time it is. Called out sick for the first time since moving here. Today is just about trying to breathe. Because I think that’s all I can manage. How am I supposed to save anyone else when I feel like I’m drowning?
It sounds dramatic, I know that. But it feels worse.
I remember back in high school my best friend Savannah found out her dad had cancer. All of a sudden my problems seemed so small. Who cared about a physics exam grade when faced with the reality that your parents could get sick? It was a horribly sobering thought for a sixteen-year-old. Talk about a formative experience. Obviously the perception of your problems is relative, but that was a pivotal moment for me.It gave me perspective on how to look at life’s big and small obstacles in a way that took some of the pressure off.
Off of being an all-A student, or off of losing my virginity in aspecialway, or just off of navigating big, real feelings like heartbreak or guilt.
But then it felt like my world tilted on its axis when my mom died. My entire barometer for how to view the world was shifted. Irreparably damaged. Instead of normal problems feeling small, they feltirrelevant. How could I care about anything else when my favorite person in the world was taken from me? Nothing mattered anymore. Because the biggest problem I could imagine facing had happened to me and that left me…empty. Aimless.
Time has helped with finding purpose again, but that emptiness just never fully goes away. Like something in my body is permanently missing.
Most days it’s a dull ache in my bones. Just a gentle, unpleasant reminder I can’t quite banish. Sometimes it spikes to a shock of pain if a particular memory comes up or if something catches me off guard. Like Matt bringing up his mom for the first time, or Maggie from work calling me “honey” like my mom used to.
Some days it’s worse. Maybe more like a headache—not debilitating, but something that’s impossible to ignore. It puts a bit of a grief filter on everything, making work a little harder and socializing impossible. The anniversary and pretty much all holidays are guaranteed headache days.
And then occasionally…occasionally it’s hard to breathe. And on those days I take a pass on life and let the sadness consume me. It would be convenient if these days happened when I was off work or didn’t have plans, but grief doesn’t adhere to a schedule. It doesn’t care about your plans. Grief’s an attention whore and some days it’s just all about her.
I can never really predict when these days will strike. It could have no impetus at all and catch me totally unaware—just an unexpected, really bad day from the moment I open my eyes. Other days it’s something I probably should’ve seen coming. Like realizing I’ve fallen for someone special, someone who could be taken from me one day.
I bury the thought as deep as I possibly can.
No matter what the cause—obvious or not—these are the days of the Terrible and Depressing Thoughts. Like the Things My Mom Won’t Be Around For or, my favorite, the Things I Won’t Ever Experience Again. Just some light, easy topics to mull over.
Sometimes it’s the smallest thing that will get stuck in my head on these days. A tiny thought that steals my breath and ability to even function.
I’m never going to eat my mom’s apple pie again.
It’s the thought that’s been playing on a loop today, making this fight a losing battle. Every time it cycles through my mind it’s like a fresh wave hits me and pulls me under again.
It’s just pie. It’s just pie. It’s just pie.
I turn over and push my face into my pillow, pulling the covers up and over my head. I wish I could fall asleep and have some blissful ignorance for a bit. I’d even take as little as a few minutes. Because this fullawarenessis crushing me. Awareness that it’s just pie, yeah, but I’ll never have her pie again because she’s gone. And she and her pie will never, ever be back.
And there are so. Many. Never-agains.
I’m never going to hear my mom’s voice again. That one is uniquely crippling and one of my most common Terrible and Depressing Thoughts. She had such a nice voice. As an elementary school teacher she had that gentle, warm cadence locked in. It was so calming and just…lovely. And I loved hearing it slip when she’d use some creative non-curse word or on therare occasions when she’d lose her temper. I still find myself using her silly, made-up curses. Sometimes I can almost hear them in her voice.
Some days it feels like I can’t quite remember it though. Like it’s on the edge of my mind but I can’t bring it forward in full clarity. And I know one day it will be a distant memory—something I can only recall through a saved voicemail or video on my phone.
