C'est La Vie

Tears were streaming down my face – leaving behind their mark as if they were permanent markers. As I tried to stand, it felt as if my legs were experiencing an earthquake that for some reason everyone else on earth was completely oblivious to. I struggled to comprehend the information that I had just been told. Was she dead? Is this just some sick joke? This feels like one of those moments where you wish that that the ground would just swallow you whole. As the officer stood there offering his condolences, dripping wet, all I could hear was the faint ringing as if I had developed tinnitus in that very moment while standing there. I don’t think that I would be able to recall anything that was told to me after that point, and to be honest, I don’t really want to.

A few days had passed before I could even bring myself to get out of bed. I had the coroner’s office ringing me all morning wanting to know what I wanted to do next, as if I was meant to know what I wanted to do next. What were the correct steps to take next? What are you meant to do? How are you supposed to continue? Arranging a funeral, telling everyone, making sure that others are okay, making sure that I am okay and healthy. I struggled to find answers to every single one of my questions that were doing marathons around my head 24/7 as if they were Mo Farah, all determined to win the race.

Today is the day, I decided to finally pick myself up and start putting the pieces together again, no matter how much I felt like I had just fallen off the wall – unable to be put back together again. The thought hit me whilst I was in the shower, to celebrate the wonderful life that she had lived, I want to do something special, something that, in the future, will help me and everyone else that she knew, as well as being able to help me in this present moment, to move on – even if this was just a tiny bit. I want to put together a time capsule filled with stuff that people that she knew have that remind them of her. Then a few years down the line, we can all meet up again and remember her, and be reminded of her beautiful soul. My first stop was her parents’ house, they immediately knew what they wanted to put in, they placed a beautiful piece of jewelry that she owned when she was a child that she left behind since it didn’t fit her anymore. Her mother said to me “I’ll put this in since it is as beautiful as she was”, when she said this my heart ached, it was such an accurate way to describe how precious she was. The next stops on the list were to visit her friends’ houses and ask for items, to which everyone obliged, from photos to little trinkets. Everyone had put something in that was as beautiful as she is-…was.

After going around to everyone else, the inevitable moment came where I had to deposit something into the box, I wanted to put something that was not only special to me, but also something that was special to her. Throughout the entire day, I spent hours on end trying to come up with an idea that is as perfect as her, until it finally hit me. There was a book that I had gotten her, it was a gift that I had gotten her on one of our first anniversaries, she must have read it over a million times, she loved it, however the problem came when I forgot the title, so had trouble finding it in the gargantuan bookcase she had. All I remembered was that the book was brown, tattered with a leather cover, the pages looked as if the book dated back to Shakespearean times, it really showed how much she used it. So, I set upon the task of trying to find the book. I ended up turning the whole house upside down and then turning it right way up again, to no avail. Then I remembered the wooden pier by the lake. Whenever she felt down, or as if she needed just a little space, she went to the little pier with the gorgeous view of the beautifully clear lake and towering mountains in the background, with the perfect view of the sunset in the valleys between the mountains, it created a truly hypnotic effect, purely from how alluring the sight was. When I arrived, it was just as elegant as I remembered. I immediately scoped around in hopes of spotting the book. Then I saw it. It was sat on the little swing attached to the old willow tree, where she used to sit. I don’t blame her for picking this spot, it was beautiful, it is understandable why it was basically her second home, the view was exquisite, anyone who was sane wouldn’t pass on the opportunity to sit in such a scenic place for hours on end.

Once I got home, I took to writing a little passage about her. Within the note I wrote about my deepest feelings towards her, talking about how captivating her personality was, how much of a beacon of hope she was to not only me but anyone she ever met. She was an enticing, pulchritudinous blonde with a gravitating personality that brought nothing but joy to the world. Among everything I had to do over the past few days, for some reason writing this note seemed to be the toughest feet of them all. It felt like this was it, it felt like my last moments with her, but this time I knew they were my last moments with her, but this time I was accompanied by everyone else’s most treasured memories of her, being put away, to be preserved underground, not to be touched for years to come. This was it.

Everyone came to her spot for one final goodbye. One of her friends mentioned her most profusely said phrase: “C’est La Vie!” But for some convoluted reason, this time it has a bitter meaning, it took a literal meaning. The once positive “that’s life” became more of a closing statement, with her life being over, this really was life, for her it may be over, but the passion and beauty that she brought to each and every day as well as the vision that she had of the world, somehow didn’t die with her, it almost lives in each and every single one of us, that was the effect that she had on every single person stood around this box at this picturesque place. With one final goodbye we all said, C’est La Vie to her, for one last time.