by Eric Walters
“Have a good flight.”
“You ready for release?” my pilot asked.
I waited for the other pilot to answer.
“Sophie, are you ready for release?” my pilot asked again.
“Oh, sure, yeah, I guess.”
“Be prepared for a sudden slowdown. You’re going to feel it in your stomach.”
“I’m ready.” I wasn’t, but what else could I say?
I heard a grinding sound, and then the line in front of us sailed away, trailing behind the other plane. At that same instant our glider slowed down, and I did feel it in my stomach. Being forewarned hadn’t helped. Up ahead the other plane continued to pull away, and the roar of its engine faded to nothing. The only sound now was the whooshing of wind.
“I love this moment when I’m set free,” my pilot said. “It’s like letting a bird out of its cage, or I guess off its leash.”
The glider banked to the side, and I screamed as I saw the ground beneath us on my left coming toward us!
“Sorry, I should have told you I was going to do that,” my pilot said.
“I’m sorry for screaming.”
“I’m trying to get us into a thermal,” he said.
“I understand. I know.”
“You know, one of the best things about a glider is you don’t have to worry about engine failure. Regular planes need the thrust of the engine to overcome drag so they don’t go down. With a glider we have much less drag, so the lift of the thermals keeps us aloft. If you think about it that way, you’re much safer in a glider than you are in a plane with an engine.”
“That’s good to know,” I said. I willed myself to believe it.
The glider continued to bank. I gathered enough courage to look over the edge of the cockpit to the ground below. There were large patches of green, crisscrossed by roads, and an occasional house or barn way down below. If I wasn’t so scared I could have thought of it as beautiful.
“You’re doing well,” he said. “Much better than I did my first time.”
“Really?”
“All I wanted to do was get back on the ground, safe and alive,” he said.
“I was thinking the same thing. Maybe I’m not really doing any better than you did.”
“I threw up,” he said.
“I’ve been close,” I said.
“I wasn’t even close to the bag. It splattered all over my lap and then ran down my legs, all over my shoes and the floor. I don’t think my pilot was very impressed.”
“So far I’ve been able to hold it and—are we rising?”
“We caught a big thermal. I didn’t think you’d notice,” he said.
“It feels sort of like getting in an elevator.”
“Thermals are like elevators for gliders, and today we’re on an express to the penthouse! We could stay up here for hours.”
“Hours?”
“Yeah, hours and hours, but if you want me to take you down right now, I will,” he said.
I did want to get back down. I’d done my different, and it didn’t matter if it was for ten minutes or ten hours. All I had to do was say, Take me down. I wasn’t going to do that.
“I’m good for a while longer. Let’s keep flying.”
I looked at the GoPro video I’d uploaded. It had already been viewed by a lot of people, and the comments were pretty positive. Funny, but the bumpy, bouncing footage of the ride seemed to be causing my stomach to flip more than the actual ride had. In the end, we’d been in the sky almost two hours. I couldn’t really say I’d enjoyed it or would ever do it again, but I was glad I’d done it. One more different completed.
DAY 79
My father popped his head into my room. “So is there anything planned for today?”
I looked up from my books. “Not today. I have the day off.”
“A day off would mean you weren’t studying for courses you don’t start for a couple more weeks.”
“I meant the day off from differents. Ella’s going with her father to a cousin’s place out of town, so I’m free to study.”
“Well, at least you’ll have a quiet house for a few hours. Oliver’s at a friend’s place, and I’m heading out for a while.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just out.”
My father was so transparent, I could always tell when he was trying to hide something.
“Just out where?” I asked.
“I have a few places to go to.”
“Where exactly are these few places you’re going out to?”
“I’m going to go pick up some flowers.”
There was only one reason he’d be getting flowers and only one place he’d be going with them. It was a place I hadn’t been to for years and years.
“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked.
“To get flowers?”
“To take the flowers to Mom.” The word mom caught in my throat and then sounded funny coming out. I never had any reason to say that word out loud anymore.
“But you don’t ever go to…” He put a hand on my shoulder. “I really appreciate the offer, but you don’t have to come with me. You really don’t.”
“I know I don’t have to, but I want to. Maybe it’s time.”
We drove in silence. The flowers for my mother were in the backseat. My father and I had exchanged polite, nothing-important kind of talk on the way to the greenhouse. It seemed buying the flowers had dried up our words even further, and now the silence was complete.
We had an unspoken rule in my house that we didn’t talk much about my mother, and today we’d violated that rule by talking about her, buying her favorite flowers—daisies—and now driving to the cemetery.
My brother occasionally went with my father. I never had. In the beginning I’d always had an excuse, and finally my father stopped asking me.
The picture of my mother on my father’s dresser in his bedroom was the only one that wasn’t hidden away. Some were in albums in the buffet, and a lot were on an old computer that sat in my father’s office, unused.
It took almost six months after her death for her clothing to get moved out of my father’s bedroom—their bedroom. My father hadn’t been able to do it. Finally my aunt Janice—Mom’s sister—came over and did it. We left for the day, and when we came back the clothes were no longer in my father’s room. They hadn’t gone far though. They had been boxed and put down in the crawl space.
For years after that, when I’d go downstairs I could smell her. There were the remnants of her perfumes, which I still treasured, but there was something else, something that was the essence of who she was. The aroma stayed there for years and then slowly faded, and I could no longer smell it. But the clothes remained there.
“I’m still amazed that you went up in that glider,” my father said, breaking the silence by talking about something safe.
“I’m still pretty amazed myself. It was really scary.”
“It was very, very brave,” he said. “It was almost as brave as coming to the cemetery today.”
I was surprised. This wasn’t just polite change-the-subject conversation.
“I don’t feel so brave,” I said as the cemetery appeared in the side window. My father slowed down and turned in through the gates.
“Do you remember being here the day of the funeral?” my father asked.
“I’ll never forget.” It had been seven years since that day—since I’d been here.
He pulled the car off to the side of the road and turned off the engine.
“We won’t stay long,” he said.
“We can stay as long as you want.”
“I never stay long.”
We got out of the car.
“Could I carry the flowers?” I asked.
“Of course.”
I opened the door and pulled out the bouquet of flowers. Th
ey smelled good.
We walked among the headstones. I read little bits of information as we passed. Entire lives summed up in a few words.
“Here it is,” he said as we stopped in front of her headstone. The largest carving was her name: Grace Elizabeth Evans. Hardly anybody had called her Grace. Her parents and my father had called her Gracie. Her sister had called her Spacie when she was too little to say Gracie and then kept on calling her that. Oliver had called her Mummy—he was only four when she passed—and I’d called her Mom. Elizabeth was her mother’s name—my grandmother’s.
Below the name were the dates marking the beginning and the end of her life. Thirty-eight years. So short. Just more than twice the length of my life. I’d never thought of it that way. I’d already lived almost half as many years as what my mother had lived in total. We’d passed headstones that showed people who had lived so much longer. How was any of this fair—to her, to my father, to my brother, to me?
Cheated of her in life, we were recorded in rock—wife of Fred, mother of their beloved children Sophie and Oliver. It felt strange to see my name etched into the stone, but I did feel beloved. She had made us all feel that way. Gently I leaned the flowers against the headstone.
“Could I ask you a question?” my father asked.
“Of course.”
“Why did you never want to come here again to see your mother?”
“I would have come every day if I could have seen my mother,” I snapped.
“It was insensitive of me to say it that way. I’m sorry.”
“No, no, I’m the one who should be sorry. I shouldn’t have been short with you.”
My father wrapped an arm around my shoulders. It felt good.
“I know how much you miss her. How much we all miss her,” he said.
There was so much I could have said, but the words in my throat were blocked, and I had tears in my eyes.
“She was so brave all the way through it,” he said. “She was just concerned about us.”
I nodded my head—that was all I could do. She had been brave. She hadn’t complained, and I’d known she was worried about us.
“She would have been so proud of you, the way you’ve helped take care of your brother and me.”
That was why I worked so hard, not to let her down.
“But she would have been even prouder of you these past few months,” he said.
“She would have?”
“Definitely. Your mother had a real sense of adventure.” He paused. “I’d like to think that she’s up there looking down and smiling as she’s watched you doing your differents.”
It made me smile thinking about that.
“She would have been so happy to see you moving forward in your life,” he said.
“When are you going to move forward?”
He looked as surprised by what I’d said as I was at saying it.
“You’ve never even been out on a date,” I said.
“That would involve somebody wanting to date me,” he said.
“Lots of people would date you.”
“Yeah, I guess I am a real catch.” He smiled.
“You are. So why haven’t you?”
He shook his head. “You know your mother and I met in high school, right?”
“Eleventh grade, in the cafeteria.”
He chuckled. “Me tripping over my big feet, falling flat on my face in front of everybody, showering my French fries onto her table.”
“She told me.”
“I’ll tell you what she didn’t know. I did it on purpose to meet her.”
I knew something he didn’t know. “Dad, she told me she knew you did it on purpose.”
“She knew?”
I nodded. “She told me but asked me not to tell anybody. Especially not you.”
My father chuckled again. “I should have known. She could always see right through me.”
“That’s not hard,” I said. “You might be a great catch, but you’re a terrible liar.”
“Not enough practice. You know, from the first time I saw her I wanted to meet her. She was so beautiful and kind and fun. You know, you really remind me of her.”
I’d been called kind and I’d been called beautiful. I’d also been called the opposite of fun.
“It’s such a stereotype, you know, high-school sweethearts marrying,” he said.
A stereotype I’d never know. I was through high school and through with my high-school boyfriend. I knew Luke wasn’t the one. And looking back, I was lucky he’d realized it before I did.
“She always did seem to know what I was thinking better than I did.” My father let out a big sigh. “I would have given my life for her.”
“She knew that,” I said in a whisper. “And she would have done the same for you.”
“Or for either you or your brother. She loved you so much.”
“I know that. But…don’t you think she would have wanted you to move on?” I asked.
“I don’t have to think because I know. Before she…well… she told me she wanted me to find somebody else and get married again and live happily ever after.”
I knew that nobody lived happily ever after. “So why haven’t you?”
“It’s just that she was it. She was the one for me—the only one. I knew I’d never find another person to love the way I loved her—the way I still love her.”
“I understand,” I said. “But you still need to move forward.”
He shook his head slowly. It looked like he wanted to say something, but now it was his words that didn’t seem to be coming. I wrapped both of my arms around him, and he hugged me back, and we both started to sob.
Today my different was maybe the hardest thing I’ve had to do. I went to the cemetery to put flowers on my mother’s grave. The last time I was there was when she was buried seven years ago. The last time I gave her flowers was three days before she died. I’d picked them from our garden. I’m not sure of all the reasons why I haven’t gone to the cemetery before today. I had the opportunity. My father still goes every couple of months. Maybe I was just too scared. Sometimes you can be so scared of dying that you become scared of living. I know I am not going to be scared anymore.
I put up one picture—of my mother’s headstone—and added three words: Loved and missed.
DAY 80
In the beginning I found it strange and a little unsettling to go through my posts and read what “friends” who were really mainly strangers had to say. Almost all the comments were positive and supportive and often contained ideas for a new different. Ella mined those comments and connections continually to set up our adventures.
Of course, after that first negative comment I still felt a little apprehensive about what I might find. Somebody told me that the Internet was like giving everybody a stage and a megaphone and a belief that they had the right to say whatever they wanted to say and were so anonymous that they could say it freely. Things were said online that people would never say to someone’s face. I hadn’t had many negative comments, but they came occasionally, and I wondered when the next one would come and what it would be.
One of the things I’d learned through all this was how strongly I desired to please people, to be liked by them. Even people I’d never met. Their opinions were more important than they should have been. I’d focus on the one person who didn’t like me rather than the ninety-nine people who did. I just hoped everybody would be positive this time. Going to the cemetery had made me feel vulnerable and raw inside.
I started scrolling down. Lots of likes, thumbs up and positive posts were on my timeline. Nobody’d had anything negative to say. Thank goodness. I stopped at a long entry.
Hello, Sophie,
My name is Emily, and I’m thirteen years old and going into eighth grade in September. Although we’re friends on Facebook, I know you don’t know me. I
know you because I’ve been following all the things you do. I’ve never written to you before, but I’ve retweeted and liked things. But today I wrote because of where you went yesterday and what you wrote.
What you don’t know about me is that we have some things in common. My mother died too. It was three years ago. I was ten. I read about you going to the cemetery. I’d never been to my mother’s grave since she died. I read what you did, and I asked my father to take me. We brought flowers just like you. It was so hard that I almost made my father stop before we got there. Then I thought about what you did and how brave you were, and I got braver. I’m glad I went. It was the right thing to do. I wouldn’t have done it without you. Thank you for doing differents and helping me to do one myself.
Your friend,
Emily
I was stunned. I read the letter again. I had no idea of the impact I could have on a stranger. I thought back to all those years before and wished I’d had somebody to write to. Somebody who could write back. That’s what I had to do. There was no choice. I had to write back, although I wasn’t completely sure what I was going to say. It didn’t matter—the words would come. I didn’t need to think. I just had to write.
Thank you, Emily. I’m so sorry for your loss. I guess I know how it feels. Sometimes people will try to make you feel better by telling you they understand what you’ve gone through. They don’t. Only people like us, who have lost a parent, can really know. I’m glad I helped you do what you did. I want you to know that your words make me feel braver too.
Your friend,
Sophie
DAY 81
I sat at the keyboard and tried to figure out what to write. It was a strange thing when a different had been embarrassing not only to do but even to write about. But the rules were the rules. It wasn’t completely real until it had been acknowledged on social media. I’d never dreamed Ella would arrange this one and I had to give her full marks.
Okay, time to begin. I wondered what my father—or Luke—would think.