The Day You Went Away

by Jennifer Hebbard

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BLAKE

  The sun is always shining and it is always warm here. I love to lay in the green grass and just let the sun warm me from the inside out. It was never too warm here. It was never too anything here actually. The weather was always sunny with just the barest whisper of a cool breeze. Everywhere you looked there were brilliantly colored flowers and grass and trees. The sky was always a clear and crisp blue. The air smelled fresh and clean like it does just after a spring rain shower. Everything was perfect. Well, almost. I felt happy here. Happy and free and light most of the time. There were still the reflections of pain that I felt like a sliver that had gotten stuck under my skin. The pain of my family. I remember the day I died. They say I’m not supposed to but I do. Jacob, my…guide here for lack of a better word said that eventually the memories of that day will fade like everything else. I’m not sure if that’s true, or even what it means, but I do remember. I remember both of my mother’s as well. I remember always feeling loved and safe and secure when I was with them. It wasn’t that I felt unsafe now, now that they weren’t with me any longer, it was just, different. Jacob says I need to understand that everything, every single thing on Heaven and Earth happens for a reason and that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, and so are my moms. I get that, I do. I just wish that they could know how wonderful it is here and that I am safe and protected. I wish they would stop crying. I sighed and arose from the warm grass. All around me animals of every species played and lived together. Puppies walked with lions and a giraffe grazed with a tiger over near a lake with the clearest water you have ever seen. People mingled with the animals and each other. Everyone was happy and smiling. There was no sadness here, no anxiety or loss, only peace. Jacob waited for me by a cherry blossom tree. He was never far from my side as I tried to navigate this new world.

  “Blake, you look troubled.”

  “Hi Jacob, no, not troubled exactly. I dreamed of my moms again.”

  “Ahh I see.” Jacob had told me that to dream of your loved ones here was to view that which you were no longer a part of.

  “And what you saw, did it trouble you Blake?” I just shrugged my shoulders at that. Was that what I felt? Troubled? Not exactly but I didn’t know how to explain it either.

  “They were crying again. But at least this time they were doing it together.”

  Jacob smiled at me in that way that always made me feel warm inside. “There are all kinds of tears Blake. Tears for what we have lost, tears for what we have gained. Tears of joy and of pain and sorrow. Tears are our former bodies way of cleansing itself. A washing away. I’m glad for you though that they were shedding their souls together finally. Together Blake, is always better.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better though if they were happy? If they were smiling and laughing together?” I felt a distant ache of longing to be held in my mother’s arms again. For just one more moment. They tell me this longing too, will fade away.

  “Not always” Jacob responded putting his hand on my shoulder in comfort. “Healing comes in many forms. We may not always understand that the healing is actually occurring at the time, but the soul knows. Come on buddy, let’s go for a walk. Don’t worry, I have a feeling you will be very joyful at the conclusion of this chapter in your family’s life. You’ll see.”

  Blake wasn’t sure but he trusted Jacob and he felt better already just being in his presence. He always did. So, for now, I’ll dream and watch and wait. Maybe in some way, I could even help. Time will tell.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  KANE

  I felt that pieces of me, pieces that I had thought I had lost were slowly, painfully slowly knitting themselves back together again. Very slowly. I still found myself overcome with guilt and anxiety far too often. But I have been trying to talk it through with Eden as often as I can. Eden thinks we should see a therapist; I am vehemently opposed to this idea. This pain seems far too intimate to share with a stranger. Eden and I have had many arguments over the therapy thing. She is insistent that it will be helpful in our healing process. I am insistent that it will achieve nothing but to make me anxious and resentful. It seems she always wants to discount my feelings in this and that makes me angry. We have made some big strides since finally coming together to share our grief and pain and for that I am truly grateful but a lot of days it seems as if we take two steps forward and one step back. I’m so tired. Just when I think I am making some kind of progress something happens to set me back again. Eden says she thinks that is normal but I’m not so sure. Last week I was having a good day. I mean I generally felt good for the first time since I could remember. Even that ache in my chest had begun to subside a bit. I decided to go out back and mow the lawn. In the middle of the yard the blades of the lawn mower hit something hard. I shut down the engine immediately and turned the mower over to dislodge whatever it was that got caught in there. What I found was a badly mangled Star Wars action figure. Blake must have left it out here and it had somehow gone undetected until now. I carefully removed the plastic figure from the blades and held it reverently. I sat in the grass, turning the figure over and over again in my hands. This must be one of the last toys Blake had played with before he died. There it was again. That sharp breath-taking ache of loss and pain come roaring back into my chest. I was a fool to think that it was truly gone. How could it ever go away when Blake was never coming home. Did I even deserve to be free of it? My answer to that question varies greatly depending on the day. I am still carrying that little mangled figure with me in my pocket. I’m not sure if that is a healthy coping mechanism but I don’t care. It makes me feel like I have a part of him with me. I told Eden about the incident in the yard. She was sympathetic but I don’t think she realized the effect it had on me. We still have only a half-mowed yard now because I can’t bring myself to go out there and finish it. I thought about hiring one of the neighborhood kids to do it but I decided against that as well. Someday I’ll feel strong enough, good enough to go out there and finish what I started. Someday, but not today.

  CHAPTER NINE

  EDEN

  She’s so stubborn! I love Kane, God knows I love her more than life itself but sometimes I wonder how committed she is to healing, both as an individual and with me as a couple. She won’t even consider seeing a grief counselor. Half the time, she won’t even talk to me. Not about Blake anyway. It’s almost as if she thinks that not talking about him will erase the fact that Blake is dead. That it will magically erase her pain and grief. I’m so afraid though that what it’s really doing is erasing our son. Of course, I can’t say that to her. She is already so wracked with guilt that it would completely destroy her. I am having so much trouble connecting with her sometimes anymore and I know she feels the same. I really thought we had crossed a threshold the day she was sent home from work, and we really had but it seems as soon as we manage to hurdle one barrier in our quest to live again, seven more pop up and take its place. It’s never ending or at least it feels that way sometimes. I think about Blake a lot, almost constantly actually. As hard as I try to remember the good times, the wonderful things about his life, I always end up remembering him lying on that bed in that cold dark room and the pain hits me full force again. I lose my breath like I’ve been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. My baby. My baby is gone and there is nothing I can do about that. Sometimes I can go to Kane, cry with her, grieve with her. Sometimes though, my pain feels far too private to share, even with Kane. It is in these moments that I wonder if I’ll ever be able to take a pain free breath again. Kane and I are in a better place now then we were even a month ago. For that I am grateful but we still have such a long way to go and I’m so tired. I pray to God every night that I could just see my boy one more time., hold him in my arms one more time. Did I tell him that I loved him enough? Did I show him? I think about his last moments. Was he scared? Did he hurt? Did he call out for me? I drive myself insane with these questions over and over again. Maybe someday I’ll be
able to go an entire day without my heart feeling as though it is being ripped from my chest. Maybe someday, but not today.

  CHAPTER TEN

  JACOB

  I’m worried about Blake. He shouldn’t still have the memories and worries that he has. Not here. Most of us remember the day we left initially but it never lasts long. My only memories now are of this place and all of them are happy ones. See, that’s the whole point. All of those worries, the stress and pain, the loss and the emptiness are simply, left behind. Blake is holding on too tightly to all of the things of his former life. He worries for his mothers. Rightly so. None of us take joy in witnessing that much pain. What Blake doesn’t understand is that sometimes that pain is necessary to grow. To heal. It takes a very long time. No, that’s not exactly right. It can’t really be measured in time. Time has no relevance here, just the same as time has no relevance inside of grief. Blake’s mothers can only measure time in as how long it has been since he left them. Blake can only measure time is as how long he has been gone from them. What all of them will come to realize is that time itself is an illusion. The greatest joy, lies directly on the other side of the greatest pain.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  KANE

  This is not working. None of this is working. I thought Eden and I were growing back together but now just weeks later; we seem to be further apart than ever. I’ve never been someone who has been comfortable talking about my feelings. I’ve opened up more to Eden than with anyone else in my life, ever. Before and after Blake’s accident. It’s one of the things I have always loved most about her, about our relationship. I have always felt safe with her. I still do I just…don’t know how to talk to her anymore. I mean I can, but I can’t. Eden is pushing me to be more open but she doesn’t understand. I’m scared. I’m so scared that once this wound is open, I mean truly open that all of these broken parts that make me, me will seep out onto the floor. I’ll be nothing but a husk, an empty shell and no one can love someone who has become nothing. I’ll lose her. If that happens, I will have lost everything. Everything that ever really meant anything to me anyway. Even the thought of Eden no longer being in my life makes my body fold in on itself and I slide down the wall I’m leaning against. I can’t stop the tears from coming and I shove my fist into my mouth to silence the moan of pain that accompanies them. I don’t want Eden to hear me. I gain control of my emotions, as much as I am able to and take a deep cleansing breath. My head tilts back and I look up. It’s not the bathroom ceiling tiles I see though. “Blake, I miss you so much. Your Mommy and I are just not doing well with you gone. We miss your laughter, your silly jokes. The way that every room you were in felt full and alive. We love you so much kiddo and I just don’t know how to go on without you. I’ve tried, I have, but it all seems so dark and cold without your light. I don’t know how to get warm again. If you have any friends up there, your Mommy and I sure could use some guidance about now.” I let my head drop back to hang between my knees and laughed at the absurdity of it all. I stood up and fixed my face as best I could in the mirror. I suddenly had a burning need to see Eden. To touch her, and breathe in her scent. I needed to just be in the same space as she was. Of all the changes in our lives this past year I knew that my love and desire for Eden would always remain. I needed her like I needed air. I washed my face and decided that was as good as it was going to get and went in search of my wife.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EDEN

  I had read the same paragraph three separate times before I threw the book on the bed in frustration. It was useless, my concentration was completely shot. Kane and I had argued again last night, it seemed that’s all we do anymore. No, that’s not really true. We didn’t argue all the time, just more than we ever had in the past. It just seems like she’s stuck. Hell, maybe I’m stuck too, I’m sure not moving forward. I want to though, God how I want to. I want both of us to move forward together. I was out shopping yesterday and I stopped in a small diner for lunch. There was a couple sitting next to me with a little girl of about seven. She couldn’t sit still in the booth and I laughed at her antics. Her parents looked at me apologetically. “Do you have any little ones of your own?” The woman asked me. I looked at her silently and without even thinking twice I answered. “Yes, A son.” The woman nodded and smiled. “So, you know then.” I nodded silently and whispered “yes, I know.” I don’t even know why I did it except that it felt so good for just one moment to be just another mother and not the woman with a dead son. I just want things to be normal again, but I know that will never happen. No matter what things change or where life takes me in the future, I will always be the woman with the dead son. That’s who I am now, to our family and friends. To society as a whole. I’m more than that though. I’m an artist and a wife and a woman and a mother. Yes, I am still a mother. None of these things take away from how much I love my son. How much I miss him every second of every day. After that lunch at the diner I went to the cemetery, to Blake’s grave. I laid on the grass over his grave. Most of it had grown back now and it was a lush green. I sunk into it. The blades tickled my skin and cradled me like a child. I caressed the ground and talked to my baby. “I miss you so much Blake. Your Mama does too. So very much. It’s like we can’t find our center with you gone. Sometimes Blake, late at night I still think I hear you calling out for me. I stumble out of bed and go to your room. Every single time I see that empty bed I feel that I can’t breathe anymore. I fall into your bed covered in my own tears. It’s losing your scent now. I know sometimes your Mama can hear me crying but she doesn’t come. I don’t think she knows what to say to me. She feels so guilty about what happened to you Blake. I tell her it’s not her fault, what happened to you. She says she knows but deep down I know she doesn’t. She blames herself for your death and I’m so afraid she will never get over it. Blake, how do we do it? How do we move on and live again without you? We need help baby, and I just don’t know where to turn to find it.” I patted the grass and rubbed my cheek against its softness. I pictured Blake behind my eyelids. His tousled brown hair and crooked smile. It was probably silly but I felt better. I felt that Blake was listening to me, that he heard me and that made me feel better. I didn’t tell Kane about the diner or my trip to the cemetery. It’s not that I thought she wouldn’t understand. I knew she would have. It’s just, it felt like that conversation was just mine and maybe it was selfish but I wanted to keep it to myself. I picked up my book again as I could hear Kane coming down the hallway. When did I start tensing up when I heard her coming? This felt so wrong. Kane was always my safe harbor in any storm. She still was it was just that now Kane was drowning in a storm of her own and I didn’t know how to save her. I didn’t know how to save either of us.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BLAKE

  I woke up, my face wet with tears. I miss my moms so much and they need me. They told me so. I went for a really long walk as soon as I got out of bed. I just needed time to think. How could I help them? What can I do from here? There must be something. Maybe Jacob knew. I walked and walked what felt like miles but I never tired. That didn’t happen here. We slept but that was more out of habit than necessity. It was nice to not be constrained by the limits of my former body. I never tired, nor got hungry. I walked through trees and next to bubbling brooks. The sound of the water and its scent in the air calmed me. The worry remained however. I wanted to be free of it but I couldn’t. Not until I knew they were ok. I sat down at the base of a tree and let myself just be. I wasn’t there long when I heard someone approach. “Hi, what’s your name?” I smiled and opened my eyes. Standing about a foot away from me was a beautiful little girl, maybe about 5 years old. She had long blonde hair fashioned in pigtails and she wore a little yellow sundress. “Hi!” I replied. I hadn’t seen many other kids in the time I had been here but I felt somehow connected to this little girl, which was crazy since I hadn’t ever seen her before. “I’m Blake. Who are you?” The small girl tilted her head in an adorabl
e way as if she had to think about the answer. “I’m Alicia…I think.” Blake laughed right out loud at that. “You think? You mean you’re not sure what your name is?” She looked down, suddenly shy. “That’s ok” Blake jumped in “I like the name Alicia. It’s very pretty, just like you.” Alicia smiled wide at that and I felt warm inside. I felt a level of comfort that I had yet to experience here. In fact, the only other time I ever remembered feeling like this was when I was being hugged by one of my moms. Odd, that this child, this stranger should make me think of my family and the love we shared. I shook off the feeling and turned to the little girl. “Would you like to take a walk with me?” Alicia nodded and without being prodded took my hand and swung it between us. It felt, right. We walked and talked and laughed for hours. I felt as if I had known Alicia my entire life. I wasn’t sure exactly why that was as I had just met her. I guess it didn’t really matter. I felt happy spending time with her, I felt good and I have learned not to question that. “How long have you been here?” I asked Alicia. She looked up at me with that cute little head tilt again. “I’m, I’m not really sure. I was just, here and then I saw you and something told me to go over and talk to you.” She shrugged and kept walking. I was really puzzled by her answer though. Alicia couldn’t have been here long enough to have forgotten already. Could she? I guess it didn’t matter, I was just glad that I had met her. Funny but I felt really protective of her as well, not that there was any real danger here. The only dangerous things that existed here were our thoughts and memories. My thoughts and memories. I was so wrapped up in these strange feelings and this strange little girl that I never saw Jacob standing by a copse of trees, an enormous smile on his face.