Your Words

T/W: Bereavement

Those words you said before… they ate at me every day. They gnawed on my bones and swam like sharp knives in my veins. Did you know what you were doing when you said them? How they would hang on my shoulders like a weight dragging me down, down, down. That they would drown me in dark waters while I was awake. Then, how they would suffocate me with heaviness whenever I dared to sleep? They hunted me down in every moment I spent without you. You said them like they were a blessing. Why did they feel like a curse?

I can’t even pretend like I’m angry with you over them. I carry their weight without complaint. It isn't in my heart to be bitter. Behind closed eyes, I see your skeletal face, your lips chapped, as the hollow sounds of breath rattle from your chest. Your bony fingers, they reach out to me, and I ache to feel their touch.

Do you know how much I love you? It’s a love great enough that I took those words from you and burned them into my heart. I wanted a pain from them so unbearable it would leave behind a scar that never fades. A way to be connected to you always. My life drags on without you and it surprises me every day. How can this be? A world where I exist, and you don’t. 

I want you to know that I’m sorry. I’m a real screw up. I don’t ever get anything right. That’s why your words… they are too good for me. You should have saved them for somebody else. I’m sure when you said them, you thought about the girl I used to be.

I’m not her anymore.

The one with copper colored hair all the way down to her waist. Those dark brown eyes, always watching. She curled tiny fingers around your pointer finger asking every question under the sun. She wanted to know how the world worked. There wasn’t a single question you couldn’t answer.

Her laugh lingers in my mind. Do you remember those times you watched her from the kitchen window? The ways she would dance across the grass, in her bare feet, with a giggle on her lips. Her hair fanning loose around her shoulders as the sunlight streamed through it. Didn’t it look like a golden veil around her small face and cherry pink lips?

She looked like a dainty fairy when she dashed into the garden to smell the roses. Some of those roses were dressed in scarlet petals. Others were pure white like winter snow. Most of them, though, were bright pink or pale yellow. They perfumed the air trapping her in a magical realm. Her bare toes dug into the warm earth, as she leaned over, taking in all the different scents. A place like heaven. And you were always there, watching over her.

You planted me and nurtured me like you did for those roses. Tell me, did I grow to be as beautiful as they were? Most days I choke on ugliness. It’s why those words you spoke haven't been able to ring true. You didn’t raise me to be selfish and yet, the second you left… it’s like all the love in my heart went with you.

It’s the strangest things that haunt me. Certain sounds - pots and pans - as they bang around in the kitchen at 5 a.m. The stove - click, click, click... whoosh - flames igniting for a pot of coffee. It’s funny the things you find yourself missing. It’s funny the things you find yourself mourning. The smell of coffee turns me back into a small girl. The one who woke to those sounds, a thrill inside her heart, it meant you were awake.

She would slip down the steps of her bunk bed and land on the floor with cat-like grace. It’s from there she would race down the hall to find you. The smell of roasted coffee beans already filling the kitchen. She planted herself on an old wooden chair, deep mahogany brown. One of the ones you sanded down and stained yourself.

You always sat a steaming mug in front of her and opened that book of yours. You know the one. The one with all the Words. You watered her with the stories inside it and told her about a man even greater than you. She hung onto every story as they left your lips and asked you endless questions. The most important ones too, like where do we go when we die?

I know all your answers by heart, but I forgot to ask you something back then—

What do you do if you die while you're still alive?

See, my heart pumps in my chest. It does. I can put my hand on it and feel it thudding against my ribcage. Air - it comes and goes from my lungs - like it doesn’t know how to quit. A moving, breathing, corpse. Even so, if you want to be alive… shouldn’t you be grounded in the present?

Every time I close my eyes, I'm in the past. I'm with you. Eragon, my library book, and all its endless chapters sit in my lap while I'm swallowed whole by a rocking chair. It’s next to the bed that holds you as you prepare to go someplace I can’t follow. An analog clock hangs on the wall, silent except for a quiet “tick, tick, tick.” A promise that time passes at the same rate even if we want it to slow down. Even if we want it to stop.

For me it did stop. It stopped right at 5:03 p.m. on May 4^th, the year of 2010. My own personal Halloween that comes year after year. It’s full of all the ghosts of you that won’t stop haunting me. They knock on my door and ask me for sweets. I don’t have anything sweet left, though. So, they play tricks on me instead. Like the other night, in my dream, you sat next to me and let me touch your face. It smelled like you, looked like you, felt like you, but then I awoke and remembered, it couldn’t be you. You left me. You left me and when you did, the only thing you left behind were those… words.

Do you remember how that girl you raised held your hand when you left? She begged and pleaded with the man in that book you always read to her. She asked him to ask his Father to save you. Didn’t you say the rules were to ask and it shall be given to you? She told him she couldn’t live without you. His Father took you anyway. He took you and he… allowed the sun to shine that day.

You always spoke about forgiveness but how could I forgive that?

The roses lost their colors in the days following your absence. That girl, she couldn’t feel the grass beneath her feet or the warm dirt anymore. Her hair, once a beautiful golden veil, became matted and unwashed. A greasy blanket against her pale cheeks. Her eyes, no longer watching, became empty and hollow. They were unable to see anything in front of them. She couldn’t remember what a laugh sounded like when it would shake her slight frame. How could she? When even a smile couldn’t reach her lips.

It was then that I lost her. The girl you loved so much. The one you raised to be honest and kind. A selfless creature who loved with the kind of love in that book of yours. A love that was never ending, without conditions, always giving. A healing love. The world shifted into a cold and bitter thing. How could she continue to bloom in a place where you were no longer watching over her? She shriveled in the dark. A fairy with no wings.

Yet, even as I existed in a place so black and desolate, where my own hand wasn't visible in front of my face, words echoed in my head. Your words. They guided me through the darkness, like a small flame, warm and glowing. My own personal firefly lighting the way. To be honest… I couldn’t help wanting to hate them. What right did you have to place those words on me? Like you had any idea what I would face in a world where I couldn’t turn to you. How lost I would feel. How alone.

I tried everything to make you a liar. Can you forgive me? I did a great deal of unspeakable things to take those words you spoke and send them back to where they came from. I wanted you to keep them for yourself. You needed them more than I did.

The anger that ravished my body after you left could have set the world on fire. It burned hot and bright inside me with smoke heavy enough that I forgot how to breathe. If you could have seen it, you would have been disappointed, right? Didn’t you want me to handle your absence with grace? Shouldn’t I have been strong enough to go on? Didn’t I have it in me to become something - anything - that would make you proud? 

How did a carefree garden fairy become such a ghoul? A wicked thing stealing smiles from others and feeding on sorrow. You raised me better and I still fled to dark places. I wanted to go anywhere the light wouldn’t touch. Anywhere I could go where I wouldn’t be reminded of you.

I got lost. There were all kinds of monsters there. They scared me with their large teeth and red eyes. They promised to take me places I couldn’t come back from. Their claws pierced my flesh. Their breath, putrid to the point it made my insides rot and yet, I couldn’t get away. Once your lost in dark places - how do you find your way home again?

I started to wear different versions of myself to blend in. A cunning and vindictive witch, casting spells on others, an attempt to control things around me. A vampire, sucking the life out of people who were only trying to save me from myself. A shapeshifter, hiding my true face from everyone I met. A werewolf, ripping into the flesh of anyone daring to get too close. A succubus - those times I wanted to feel something like love - instead of a chest full of emptiness. I became anything I needed to be as long as I was safe in the shadows. Safe from your words.

If I made a home in the realm of twisted creatures, your words couldn’t reach me. I didn’t have to bear their weight. A weight you thought I could carry but I couldn’t. I curled up those nights and cried for you. Did you hear me? I wanted to come home. I didn’t know how to get there. Home was where you were, and where you were, was a place I couldn’t reach.

Did you ever do things you weren’t proud of when you were younger? I’ve wanted to ask you this question for a while. The version of you I remember never did anything wrong. You left huge shoes to fill. You were the type of man who lifted people out of the deep dark pits of life and set them on their feet again. Your eyes carried light inside them. It was as if something great lived inside you. A Spirit of some kind. It spoke through your lips with Words, offering comfort and guidance, to anyone in need.

The most incredible thing about you… the way you were never afraid. You saw all the inhuman things lurking in the night and never feared they would enter your home. The frightening things of this world never managed to shake you. It was like you were a wise man who built the foundation of his house on a rock. And the house - you crafted it with impenetrable walls. I’ll never forget what it looked like. It’s burned into my heart with those words of yours. 

Those words you said before… they feed me every day. They nourish my bones, making them strong. They keep the blood pumping smoothly through my veins so that my heart still beats. You knew what you were doing when you said them. How - day after day - they would lift the weight of your absence from my shoulders. They would move me forward, forward, forward. How they would bring me to the surface of dark waters when I found myself drowning. The way they would put air in my lungs when suffocation threatened to force every breath from my chest. They have echoed in my head every moment I have spent without you. What felt like a curse— wasn’t it truly a blessing?

The strangest thing happened after you left. Do you want to know what it was? The darkness couldn’t keep me. Underneath all the ghoulish versions of myself, another sliver of me existed. A piece of me stronger than the rest. It was the girl you raised. No matter how hard I tried to flee from the light, it didn’t matter. Do you know why?

The light… it was inside me.

These days, I have a little girl running around here somewhere. This time, she’s a girl I’m raising. She’s beautiful, my daughter, you would have liked her. She has copper colored hair that goes all the way down to her waist. I catch myself watching her from the kitchen window. She dances around the yard, and when the sunlight hits her at a perfect angle, her hair looks like a golden veil. It frames her small face and cherry pink lips. Sometimes, she leans over the garden fence and smells a bright yellow sunflower. She looks like an ethereal fairy inside her own magical realm.

Oh yeah, there’s a little boy here, too. He has the kind of laugh that’s contagious when it shakes his tiny body. It doesn’t take much for a smile to reach his lips. He curls his fingers in mine and looks at me with dark brown eyes, always watching. They sit next to me at the kitchen table and those stories you told me, well. I do my best to tell them as well as you did. I have a long ways to go.

Home is now where they are. I’m working to build a house for us. One that would make you proud. A house with a foundation built on a rock. We're working to make our walls impenetrable. There are inhuman things roaming around outside. I’m not afraid of them anymore. You don’t have to be afraid of how dark the world can be if you have an inextinguishable light inside you.

You taught me that.

There are moments when the world gets too loud. That's when I lay in an ocean of blankets, locked away in my bedroom, and I pull out that book of yours. You know the one. The one with all the Words. Your handwriting looks like chicken scratch all over the columns. My fingers trace the letters, and it always takes me back to you. The pages still smell like your room, a comforting aroma of old books and oil paints, even after all these years. Your presence - it never leaves me.

Anger escapes me and I find myself full of forgiveness and grace. It's when I think about how the sun was still shining that day. How could it have been any other way? Warmth from the sunlight had drenched my cheeks, as I stood outside, those first moments without you. Those sunrays were a promise I'd see you again, weren't they? A promise from that man you always told me about. The one with the Father who may not have saved your life, but even so, he still saved you. He saved you and brought you home. He brought you to a home more permanent than ones we cling to here.

When I find myself trying to go to dark places, instead of shining my light, I turn to those stories you shared with me. The ones that teach what love looks like. A love never ending, without conditions, always giving. It’s a healing love. When this happens, the world shifts back into a warm place with lots of color. The place it was when you were here and then… I have wings again. I continue to bloom. It’s in these moments, the past pulls at the scar on my heart with gentle fingers. I’m standing once more in the hallway outside your bedroom. Tears run down my cheeks, my hands grip the wall tight, and I hear…

“Danielle, I’m not worried about her. I know when I go— she’ll be okay.”