Mourning Cherries

Content Warning: Contains references to death, the passing of a loved one (grandmother), questioning religion (implied Christianity), brief mention of blood.

Two weeks ago, I realized my emotions can control the weather. I was just getting back to school after my grandmother passed, so you can imagine I was having a hard time adjusting. I know – fifteen and still not really sure what death means to me or what it looks like in the real world. Anyway, I guess I was just feeling some sort of way about it during Statistics – I never could focus in that class, anyway – and all of a sudden, the sky outside got real dark, like it was about to storm. And it did. It’s kind of crazy, because we hadn’t been expecting it to. The forecast for the day had called for clear skies and sunshine.

I don’t know if there really is anyone listening upstairs, if you know what I mean, but I like to think that maybe they’d heard the thoughts rattling around in my brain. Heard how much I missed Granny. How I missed bingo nights and the cherry cordials she’d share with me because she thought I had “such a refined palate.”

I say this because it wasn’t just rain coming from the sky – it was bingo balls and cherry cordials. 

I took a little bit longer walking home from school after that, stopping to see if I could find any sitting around but they were all gone. My dad would probably say something like “God called them home,” like he did about Granny. I don’t know about all that. By the time I got home and flopped on my bed, I wasn’t even sure it happened. All I knew was that I was tired. Tired and sad. 

There were a couple other days like that; one time I thought it was just plain old rain, but some got on my lips and I swear it tasted like ginger ale, one of Granny’s favorite drinks. 

Today is different. 

I haven’t been feeling as sad lately, and I reckon that’s got something to do with it. I’ve been more mad than anything. The school therapist says that there’s a progression with grief. That it starts with denial and eventually works its way to acceptance, but that it isn’t always linear; sometimes you can go between the different stages. Makes sense, I guess, since depression was supposed to be after this, the anger stage. 

I’m not so much mad at Granny as I am at everyone else. I’m mad that I have to keep going to school and pretending like it’s okay when I and everyone else is going to die someday, and that someday could be today or tomorrow. I’m mad that I’m supposed to come up with what I want to be when I grow up when I still can’t even fathom what that means. When I was little, Granny had shown me some pictures of herself when she was younger, and I’d crinkled my nose and squinted to try to see the resemblance. She’d just laughed and said it happens to everyone – we all change as we get older. I wondered then, and I still wonder now, how long it took for her to notice the changes to her appearance. I still feel like I look the same now as I did in third grade, albeit a bit taller and with some minor changes thanks to puberty – but I still have the same baby face. Am I going to be in my thirties and still adamant that I haven’t changed? 

I’m mad that I know all of this. That I know I’m probably going to get old and change and die. I’m mad that’s the best-case scenario. I’m mad that everyone else knows this and that we all just pretend like it’s no big deal. No big deal? No big deal that one day I’m not going to exist? I won’t have any thoughts or feelings, I just won’t be. I’m mad that I’ve had some classmates and family tell me that this isn’t true – that there’s something after we die – but that they can’t prove that. They can’t know for sure. How can they? Even if they can, how can I? 

I’m still simmering in my emotions on the walk home when it starts raining again, but this time it brings the smell of iron with it. I look at the drops landing on my exposed hands and the sidewalk and notice they’re red. To my dulled surprise, it’s blood – it’s raining blood. 

In the back of my mind, I can hear some of my classmates telling me that it’s a sign from God. A sign of the End of Days. And I’m mad all over again. I stop in my tracks and shrug off my backpack, throwing it to the ground with enough force that the ground should have shaken where it landed but it doesn’t and that just makes me even more angry. I feel all of the anger and fear and sadness I’ve been building up over the last couple weeks and I can’t help but scream. I don’t know if anyone else is around and I don’t really care, either. I scream. I scream from the pit of my stomach and the sound is so feral and unlike anything else I’m a little surprised by myself, but I don’t stop. I scream until I feel like my lungs are about to explode if I don’t take another breath and then I let my trembling knees give way and sink to the sidewalk before my backpack. 

“I can’t do this anymore!” I scream, hoping that if there is someone or something listening in Heaven or wherever else that they can hear me. I hope I shatter their eardrums. I hope it shakes them to the core and changes things. I hope they fix things. 

I want Granny back. I don’t want her to die. I don’t want my mom or my dad or my best friend to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to keep getting up every single day pretending like I’m okay with the fact that we’re supposed to and that it’s supposed to be normal and okay. None of it’s okay. 

I’m not okay. 

I can feel my anger starting to slip into something else when the rain changes again. It’s no longer blood but cherries. Cherries and ginger ale. My lip quivers and my eyes start to water as I reach out to grab one of the cherries. It doesn’t disappear the moment I grab it and so I sob. “I miss you.” The words are garbled, but I know what I’m saying through the tears. If Granny can hear me, she knows, too. 

I think she might be able to because the rain gets heavier. Now, it’s not just ginger ale and cherries – it’s also Bingo balls and cherry cordials and little balls of twine and chocolate coins and I swear it smells like the perfume she used to wear. I keep crying, hard enough that I feel like the sky should be falling down on me, but it isn’t. The things Granny used to love pile up around me until I’m surrounded by items I can almost take comfort in and feel like she’s here with me again. 

But she isn’t. 

I know she isn’t, and it hurts all over again, so I cry even harder even though there are hardly any tears left. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this,” I splutter between ragged breaths. 

And all of a sudden, I’m in Granny’s kitchen. I hear the rain pattering against the windows. I hear the breeze tickling the wind chimes. The overhead light wraps me in a warm yellow glow and the smell of fresh cookie batter overtakes my senses. “What are you doing down there, pumpkin?” She asks, hands on her hips and confusion wearing into her wrinkled features. She looks . . .. She looks just like she used to. She doesn’t look anything like that painted husk I saw in the casket a couple weeks ago. She looks like Granny. 

I don’t waste another moment and I scramble to my feet, launching myself at her for the tightest hug I can muster. She chuckles a little in surprise but sets down her wooden mixing spoon and returns the hug. I feel myself cave into her embrace and start crying all over again, fresh tears and mucus staining her “Kiss the Cook” apron that smells the way a warm hug feels. 

“Oh, now, come here, baby, it’s okay,” she tuts while petting my hair. 

“I had the worst dream,” I mumble into her shoulder. That’s what all of that was. It had to be. It had to. I step back a little, just enough so I can look up at her and take in her features again. And I feel the words come rushing out of me, “I had a dream you died! Dad said God called you back home to Heaven and I hated him for it because your home is right here! And it was raining cherry cordials and Bingo balls I missed you so much and I was worried you didn’t know how much I love you and–” 

“Shh, shh, shh,” Granny says softly with a gentle shake of her head, pulling me back in for another hug. She holds me like this for a while and I just want to stay here like this, but after a moment she backs me up again and places her hands on my shoulders. She looks deep into my eyes and smiles sweetly as her right hand comes to caress the side of my face. “It wasn’t a dream, baby,” she says so gently that it feels like she’s saying, It’s okay. 

I feel the horror threaten to knock my legs out from under me again, but Granny holds me steady, all while still smiling at me sadly. “I’m dead, baby. That wasn’t a dream.” She can see I’m about to spiral again but she continues with the same serenity, “I will always be with you. As long as you keep even just a small pocket in your heart for me, I’ll be there.” 

I’m still crying and shaking my head. “But that means you’re not here!” I protest, squeezing my eyes shut as the sobbing takes over. 

“Then look at me and tell me that again,” she demands, and I can hear the seriousness in her voice. It’s the same sternness she’d use whenever she caught wind that I was giving Dad a hard time or if I was slacking in school. She never once raised her voice at me or yelled, but I knew when she was serious. 

And I always listened. 

So, with a shuddering breath, I open my eyes again and there she remains: a steeliness to her gaze fixed with a small pout. I open my mouth to protest, to tell her it doesn’t make any sense to me, that I don’t understand. 

She can sense the flood about to escape from me, so she continues before the dam breaks again: “I know this is hard, baby, but you’re going to get through this – because you have to. Because that’s what life’s all about. I won’t lie to you; it’s still going to hurt – I still miss everyone I’ve lost over all these years – but you can’t let it define you, you can’t let it consume you.” 

“And why not?!” I find myself snapping at her and I wish I hadn’t. I didn’t mean to yell – I’ve never yelled at her. But the anger is all coming back to the surface, along with the pain, and I can feel the levee give way. “Why shouldn’t I?! Why do I have to pretend like everything’s okay when it’s not? How can I? How am I supposed to pretend like everything’s fine when we’re all going to die one day?! When I don’t know what’s gonna happen after that?! When none of us do?! When I don’t know if you’re okay or in pain or scared? When I’m supposed to focus on final exams but all I can think about is that you won’t be there for my graduation?” 

But she understands and sagely shakes her head. “Baby, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying pretend – feel it. Feel all of this, and everything, but don’t let it make you forget the good feelings, too. The good memories. The people you love and who love you. Very much.” She smiles sadly as she taps the tip of my nose with her finger. “If life were so easy, we’d probably have world peace,” she adds with a small snort. “Let me ask you this: if this is the only life you get, do you really wanna spend it like that? Miserable and suffering the whole time?” 

I let my gaze fall to the floor, because of course I don’t. I don’t think anyone consciously does. “I just . . .. It hurts so much,” I grumble through trembling lips. 

“I know, baby. But you can’t have the good without the bad. Remember this pain, but don’t let it feed on you. Remember the good times, too,” she instructs, pressing her finger to the middle of my forehead. When she does, a reel of some of my favorite times with her plays through my mind. I remember being so small she could hold me and help fly me through the air like a plane. I remember bouncing on her knee and giggling. I remember the myriad of Bingo nights. I remember this one time after school, when I told her about how someone I thought I really liked was dating someone else, she stayed up with me and we baked a bunch of desserts and played different card games until it was the next day. I remember all of these moments and more and a warmth fills my heart the same way she did. The same way standing in her kitchen and smelling her baking does. 

I’m still crying but there’s a small smile trying to form on my lips as I open my eyes and take in her visage again. Her thin, mischievous smile. Her bright eyes. The wrinkles around her eyes that she always touted as proof that she liked to laugh. 

“I’ll always be with you,” she reminds me, pressing her forehead to mine, “and I’ll always love you. Don’t ever forget that.” We’re hugging again and I can’t help but cry as a whirlwind of emotions continues to rattle my core. It does still hurt, but I’m also happy that I got to have this time with her and make these memories with her. I’m happy I got to know her and that we got to spend the time we had together doing fun and silly things. 

“I love you, Granny,” I whisper into her shoulder with a thankful smile. 

When I open my eyes again, I’m back on the sidewalk. My backpack has found its way to my shoulders and the sun is out. The cherries and bingo balls are gone, along with the other mementos. I wipe the remaining tears from my face, cognizant that they won’t be the last, and continue my way home.