Lonely, but Not Alone.

“What if you had it all / But nobody to call? Maybe then you'd know…” SMACK. A drowsy hand fell like Wile E. Coyote’s ever-failing anvil trap attempting to quench the Roadrunner; or in this case, a morning Spotify playlist alarm singing from the slumberer’s cracked iPhone 11 Pro Max. The device, her alarm clock for the past 5 years now.

Ever since her grandmother’s passing, every morning began with music. It is what she would have wanted. However, the only songs that seemed to matter were the one’s about feeling alone. Every morning, a playlist would start her day as an alarm. The playlist, a collection of songs with the keyword, “lonely.” Songs like Lonely by Akon, Lonely Day by System of a Down, Need You Now by Lady Antebellum. But the first song on the playlist, “... lonely. / I'm so loh-oo-oh-oo-oh-onely,” Lonely by Justin Bieber; the refrain a memento from the year 2020.

She felt shackled despite lying unrestrained in the comfort of her bed, while she stared at the cracked screen of her phone. It read, “7:31 AM,” the digitizer clear below the cracked glass. Those cracks, a painful reminder of that devastating phone call that ended with her dropping the phone onto the cratered parking lot of her apartment complex. Five years had passed. All her friends, family, therapists, teachers, and all those in between who she had let see her hurt, like a script, would say, “It would get better with time.” It’s not, she would silently protest.

It was time to get moving, she told herself, but remained on her back. The squishy, foam mattress, uncomfortable to lay in and equally difficult to arise from. She flung her fleece blanket off her belly, landing at her feet, but another weight held her. The immaterial burden sat thick, pressing her down. Her neurotransmitters were still unbalanced. Though her serotonin and dopamine remained low, the brain sunk in her cranium like a weighted blanket, not just hanging over her head, but her shoulders as well. The invisible weight keeping her from sitting up in bed.

Still in step one of her morning routine, she continued listening to music while she checked her notifications. “... had everything / But no one's listening / And that's just f…” Zmm Zmm Zmm. The phone rattled her hands as it vibrated, an incoming call interrupted the morning’s mourning playlist routine.

“Mhm.”

“Hey Sissy. You up?”

“Yuh.”

“Okay, good. Kathy said you’ve been late to the shop the past few days and that she did not know how to talk to you about it.” The flower shop was normally her safe haven. A quiet place where she could just sit with the succulents, roses, baby’s breath, zinnias, day lilies, orchids, gardenias, peonies, and bittersweet dahlias. Dahlias were their grandmother’s favorite. They were both a reminder of good times and a haunting reminder of her absence. There were many at her funeral.

Dahlias, she thought. Envisioning the different clusters and colors that awaited her at the shop, currently resting in her mind’s eye. “I know it’s been a rough week with...” Her brother broke her out of her drifting vision which felt like minutes had passed, but it was rather only a millisecond.

“Stupe,” she snapped back with the nickname she had given him long ago. Short for “stupid,” but at some point was shortened to “stupe,” and then took on a form of endearment. “I know. Okay? I know.” Even with her shields up, from her open wound flowed frustration and seething pain. “I’m 20 now. You don’t need to be checking up on me all the time. I can take care of myself.”

“Look I’m not trying to pick a fight before 8AM. I am just checking in,” he protested. “In a few days it will have been 5 years. I know for myself it has been hard, to put it simply. I imagine that for you it might be even harder.” He paused and let out a deep exhale.

Devastation was an understatement since experiencing the loss of their grandmother, Bela, who was their only guardian and parent. When Bela lost her sense of smell she knew it was only right to venture onto her county’s website to find information on signing up for the infamous, brain-tickling nose-swab test for COVID-19. Besides the loss of smell, she felt fine. She was 70 years young and had seen what she thought was a million times worse than the virus! The only medical challenge she could ever report was her mild asthma that kicked in seasonally.

More so, she rested in the comfort that her grandson was already out of the house. But her granddaughter was only 15 years old, and though a young woman in her eyes, she feared putting any more burden on her granddaughter who was already sinking into depression since the transition to virtual learning and not being able to see her friends. With all the shutdowns of 2020, as well as friends and family isolating and quarantining to keep loved ones safe they had to postpone the quinceañera. It really meant moving up to a sweet sixteen, and Bela had it all mapped out: a trip to Puerto Rico with family, renting a massive villa at their favorite resort, Palmas Del Mar. She not only put together an agenda of places they would see and restaurants to eat at, but even went as far as reserving and paying for everything a year in advance, not knowing that the vision of normality would continue to be slim in the year 2021.

When the text message came saying her test results were ready, she had trouble accessing the results as she needed to make an account. As the anxiety weighed heavy on her chest, she called up her grandson, her “Papí Chulo.” He had married, moved out, established his independence. She was so proud of him as he got ready for a baby. It made her feel old knowing she would be a great-grandmother, but when her son died and his wife disappeared, her grandkids became her kids. They were never her grandchildren—though they always saw her as their grandmother—they were just children. Despite her son’s busyness, she knew she could always rely on him with technological issues. He was able to guide her through setting up the account over the phone.

Talking through setting up the account while on speakerphone, he too was able to get into the account and read, “You are positive for SARS-CoV-2,” followed by instructions on how to quarantine and when to go to a doctor.

“It has also been hard for me,” he said with an unsteady voice, almost forgetting he was on the phone with his sister, not their Bela. He had gotten lost in thought, remembering that fateful phone call. He took another deep breath, to be vulnerable, to be strong. “Been hard for me to not try to be a parent for you since we have none. Please, just know that I love you Sis... And I am not going anywhere. I am going to keep bugging you, but you know. I never baby you."

There was nothing new about the occasional morning phone calls from her big brother. However, they were usually extremely brief. The kinds of calls that should have been simple text messages. The shorter the call, the more obvious the worry; more volumes said in the unspoken silence than in actual words. In his defense, he had done so much for his sister, especially with becoming her guardian after Bela’s passing. He took her on that sweet sixteen trip, but it was just the two of them plus his wife, and one year old baby. It was a bittersweet trip; more bitter than sweet. By then, they were all battling depression due to so much loss and change. The cycles of grief swaying wildly from bargaining to depression to a moment of acceptance and then back to depression. In the midst of paradise, it was hard to feel.

Fast forward to today’s foggy, 65 degree, Pennsylvania morning of 2025. After Bela’s passing, he became her legal guardian. He stayed by her through hospitalizations, in and out-patient treatments, dropping out of high school. They learned to build themselves back up together. He had helped her navigate getting her GED and associate’s degree despite no energy for anything; taught her to drive and helped her become licensed; set her up with a full-time, salaried job working under his wife at her flower shop. She gave him a glimpse of what it could look like to care for his own baby girl someday. 

She got her own apartment. Did all the right things to take care of herself. Nonetheless, it continued to be a difficult journey, grieving the loss, coping with depression and anxiety, relearning how to socialize. That was the hardest part. She had to live through a short-term, but extremely painful era where funerals were held over a video call. Connection was dying, while simultaneously becoming the foremost need. It did not matter what she knew to be true 5 years later; without conscious decision she had been clearly pushing everyone away, soaking in the belief that being alone was and is safer than not. Drowning in feeling over fact, she needed the call more than she realized.

“What are you doing after your shift today? I have a later work day, so I won’t be free ‘till about 8:30.” Though it was late, she would not deny the request she knew was to be offered. “Can I call you around then?”

“Fine,” she agreed apathetically.

“Thanks. I will let you go now. We’ll talk later.”

“Okay bye.”

“Love you Sissy.”

“I know,” she said with an air of pause. She wanted to get back to her lonely playlist in preparing for her day. “Love you too, Stupe.” 

The day went quickly. Kathy did not give her sister-in-law any grievance. Then again, her brother most likely took on whatever complaint Kathy had made about the tardiness, hence the phone call. Regardless, work was busy and the day went smooth. After work she went straight home to her apartment, determined not to look at any more smiling faces and forcing a smile, as was her custom. It was the hardest part about working, having to make eye contact and say, “Have a nice day.” That skill seemed irreparable to her after almost two years of primarily seeing any breathing person through a lifeless screen.

  Finally back on the bed of her studio apartment, she took a deep breath and sank into her obnoxious collection of pillows. With only a digital antenna for entertainment which she purchased from Amazon, she turned on her one centimeter thick, flat screen television. The heavy weight of her mind returned, as she began to drift into slumber. Lying slightly upright, her focus was not on the television but the antenna. The idea of an antenna reminded her of Bela, and how she vehemently refused streaming services and cable. “Why pay for TV when it is literally free?!” She used to declare. “¡Gratis mi niña! It has always been free, why change?”

They had a routine of coming home after school and turning on the TV to CBS 3 Eyewitness News, but not for the news, just background noise. She never failed to keep this routine. 

A few minutes had passed when her phone started buzzing. She had relaxed so that she did not even know where it was. She turned off the TV and scanned the room.  It was of course in her tiny backpack that was essentially a purse. As her hand dug into the bottomless bag, she felt the etching of the cracks. As she lifted the phone, she remembered the day she dropped it, when her brother told her Bela was gone. A fleeting thought that she shoved aside, answering the phone before what may have been the second to last buzz before voicemail.

“Where you at?”

“Home Stupe. Wait, why are you calling me? It’s not even six. I thought you were working late.”

He knocked on the door. “Can I come in?”

Half annoyed, half excited, she scurried to the door to find her brother stumbling forward from leaning on the door. In his hands a pizza box and a foil container of cheese fries.

“Hey Sissy,” he said with a sheepish smile. Looking up over his glasses, “I was able to get off early, and Kathy said you guys had a good day today at work, but that I should follow up with you. I let her know I already had planned to call you, but she insisted I drop by.”

Prior to his arrival, she had no plans to eat and had superficially committed to not eating any dinner. But now all she could think was, Cheese fries! She let him in and they sat at the circular wooden table that used to be their Bela’s.

They ate and reminisced, recalling the good and bad times; tip-toeing in and out of memories of their beloved grandmother. The era when she passed was also a novel time of new social norms. How could anyone forget the year 2020, they reflected.

“Five years now... Wow.” The room grew silent, but was reignited by her long lost smile. “Remember when we never knew if we were smiling or not because apparently our eyes aren’t as expressive as other people?”

Her brother let out a short breathy chuckle, “Yeah. I hated that.” He smiled, but not with his eyes. “Remember everything was ‘uncertain times,’” he said in his best news-anchor voice. “And when we vowed to never use the word ‘unprecedented’ ever again?”

She guffawed, “Ugh! Yes, that disgusting crap of a word. Don’t even play Stupe!”

“Or when we couldn’t do this?” He outstretched his hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Shake my hand,” he said as he wagged his hand at about the height of her hips.

“I don’t remember the last time I have shaken anyone’s hand!”

“Right!?” He exclaimed, “I know. Shake it.” It almost felt dirty. Like an incenstous act. But of course it was only a greeting gesture, reminding of pre-COVID times.

“I’m okay. I don’t want COVID,” she joked.

They both snorted and let out heavy, hearty laughs. It was a laugh more expressive of sorrow, yet releasing of joy. The laughter served as a reminder of hope, that there are bad times, yes, but also good. Her brother outstretched his arm, offering his hand again. This time she accepted. Her little hand in his big palm, he gently reeled her in, something he had not done since right before the pandemic. Taking the gesture a step further, he hugged her tightly. She uncomfortably placed her arms on his back, though felt a comfort she had missed.

“I don’t want COVID,” he recited in a soft but nasally, high-pitched mimic of a whiny voice.

“Oh my gosh, you are so extra,” she replied, which led to self-amusing chortles from her and a snort from him. The snort escalated into roaring laughter. Her brother laughed at himself. His sister joined in. He laughed until the tears flowed. She also laughed with blurry eyes. Bela’s dead.