The State of Broken Things

Through The Constellations

Adrian ~

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."

- Paulo Coelho

Through The Constellations

The concept of death is acataleptic.

While it's always possible to empathize with people, and to feel for them for what they're going through, I maintain my belief that you simply can't understand what it's like to die. For someone you know to die, for someone you love to die. It's too crazy a concept. Too crazy for someone to just disappear, for you to never see them again.

Part of me thinks it's worse for those who don't see it coming. For loved ones to die in freak accidents, for someone you love to all of a sudden be gone.

I knew my mom was going to die. Of course, I had a hard time accepting it. I had a hard time being okay with the idea of it. And I wasn't, and I'm still not, but I've had months to do all of the things I wanted with her, tell her everything I needed to say.

It's not enough. There's still so much more of my life that I want to share with her, so many things she'll never get to see.

All the same, I had time. I've had time to figure out how I'm feeling, to cope with it, to take a second and breathe. But it takes a long time. There are five stages of grief for a reason.

Losing someone is a process. And it's never easy.

When I was at Cas's last week, Dad called and told me we had to go to Argentina. I was a little confused, because our family trip wasn't for another few weeks, but he said it was an emergency and that my grandma was in the hospital.

I was a little dumbfounded. I don't like hospitals, because hospitals mean sickness and that means death and loss. Cas makes fun of me sometimes and tells me that I'm emotionally constipated, and that it takes me a while to process and then feel, but I didn't realize how right he was because I wasn't nervous or scared at all. Packing my suitcase, driving to the airport. No panic, even when I realized I had forgotten my phone at home. It wasn't until halfway through the flight that I felt it. My grandma might die. I might never see her again.

That isn't something that just happens in movies, or TV shows. Not anymore, because it's happened to me.

The flight to Buenos Aires is almost sixteen hours, and without my phone I spent most of that time just thinking. About everything, really, but more about the fact that I keep losing people. I lost my mom. Lost my dad, and just barely got him back.

And what about Cas?

Is this me finally losing him?

I couldn't quite sort through my feelings well enough to decide whether I was mad at him, sad because of him, upset with her or myself. All of it just mixed up into one big ball of emotion presenting itself as an ache in my chest which only worsened once we arrived.

And as pathetic as it was, I was scared. And all I wanted was my mom.

At the moment, it felt so ridiculous to be upset about Cas's not-cheating on me when my grandma was in the hospital.

Of course, Abuelita being Abuelita, she was totally fine. Just smiled and held her arms out to hug me, scolding me for my messy hair and for not eating enough, and then huffing and complaining about how I was missing school to come and see her. Then Ximena came in, and she fawned all over her.

So, yeah. She was good, it was just a scare, and the ache in my chest receded.

I didn't lose her. Not that day, not yet.