Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ELLIE
Sometimes when I think 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 a special way, 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 felt irrelevant.
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 full awareness is 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 the rare 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.
Grief can turn even the sanest into unstable hoarders.
I have voicemails and videos, moth-eaten shirts and dumb birthday cards.
Random movie ticket stubs and fortune cookie papers.
When I come across something of my mom’s or something that makes me think of her, I feel compelled to keep it, treasure it.
There won’t be any new memories with her or new knickknacks. No new voicemails or videos.
No new anything.
I’m never going to hear my mom’s voice or eat her apple pie ever again. Isn’t that the stupidest, most heartbreaking thing you’ve ever heard?
All because some people decided to get drunk and then drive. Consequences be damned.
I try to hold on to the anger that flashes at the thought, but it’s fleeting and drastically overshadowed by the agony that is grief and her attention-whoring ways.
It was easier at first, when things were still raw, to let the rage take over for periods of time.
The anger was uncomplicated and simple. Distracting.
And I could really go for a distraction.
I roll onto my back and pull the covers away from my face to stare at the ceiling. I’m still not sure what time it is, but I don’t think I care.
I don’t think I care about anything right now.
One of my favorite things in the world is when my mom plays with my hair.
I think I have it logged as some core memory—something she started doing when I was so little I can’t remember a time before.
Sometimes she did it absentmindedly when I was watching TV with her.
Other times I knew she did it to help me fall asleep faster, the gentle movement stronger than even any medication with “drowsiness” listed as a side effect.
My clearest memories are when she did it to make me feel better though.
Like when I had a fever that wouldn’t go away for four days or when I cried after breaking up with Chase Griffin so I wouldn’t go to college “tied down.”
She hasn’t combed her fingers through my hair in so long. I wonder why she’s doing it now? Maybe I fell asleep on her lap and she’s watching a show or reading a book? Whatever the reason, I fight to stay asleep so she doesn’t stop.
Unfortunately, there’s just something about trying to stay asleep that immediately triggers your brain to wake up wake up wake up.
And my sudden awareness causes my breath to catch and a fresh set of tears to build behind my eyes.
I peek them open as the tears slip out and see Matt’s long legs, crossed at the ankles, extending out under me.
He must be back from practice. I blink a few times to try to clear the tears, an involuntary sniff coming out louder than a bomb in the otherwise silent room. The hand in my hair stills.
“Ellie?”
I sniff again and then rearrange myself, rolling to face the other direction on Matt’s thigh and look up at him.
He doesn’t have a hat today and his hair is unkempt on top.
I’d call it bed head if I thought it had gotten that way from sleep.
His gray T-shirt looks like it should be retired soon with its fading Bears logo and tiny hole near the collar.
It’s probably really soft. My fingers twitch thinking about touching it.
Matt’s hand comes to my wet face, thumb catching the tears that steadily leak out. I focus on his eyes the best I can. They look sad.
“Hey, baby,” he says gently.
“My mom used to do that…” I sniff. “With my hair.” Matt’s face crumples a bit at my words and his thumb stills. “I’m having a bit of a bad day. Called out of work a little ago.”
Matt’s eyes move around my face and he nods slowly. “I’m happy sitting here with you, but I can leave if that would be easier,” he says as he grabs my hand and brings it to his mouth for a soft kiss.
I don’t feel any different—any less sad—but there’s something to be said for not being alone.
“You can stay.”
Matt exhales and kisses my hand again before setting it back down. “Is there anything I can do?” he says.
I hear a desperation in his voice I haven’t before.
I wish there was something I could do to make him feel better, but I don’t think I’m capable.
I shake my head and scoot forward, burying my face in that gray shirt that smells like Matt.
I knew it would be this soft. I make a mental note to steal it.
He hesitantly puts his hand in my hair, probably unsure if he should continue something that caused tears only a few moments ago. I hum against his stomach and let the memories flood my mind, accepting the simultaneous torture and bliss.